Seth: Hey everybody, how's it going? This is Seth Williams and you're listening to the RE Tipster Podcast. Today, my friend and co-founder of Stride CRM, Mike Balcom, is in the co-host seat and we've got something pretty special for you.

We're talking with Brian and Katie Desmarais, a husband and wife duo who really defined what it means to be a power couple in the land investing space. And in their first year in business, Katie was able to retire from her lucrative W-2 job.

And since then, the two of them have gone all in on land investing, building a business that now supports a lifestyle that most of us can only dream about. And they run an amazing company together and they've done a ton of deals. And they're currently residing in Uruguay with their two kids for a few months.

And they've also become a well-known land authority in the Action Academy community. On top of that, Brian and Katie were some of the early adopters of Stride CRM. They've given us a ton of great feedback as we've been improving it over the past several months.

Today, we're going to dig into their story and what drew them to the land business and how they grew it and made the leap into full-time land investing so quickly. We'll also get into what tools they lean on to keep things running smoothly and what life is like running a land business from South America. So Brian and Katie, welcome to the show. How's it going?

Katie: Thank you so much. We're super excited to be here.

Seth: Let's start from the very beginning. What was your story of when and how you first discovered and got into the land business? And what were you doing before that?

Katie: Brian, I'll let you take that one.

Brian: Yeah, it's almost about two years to the day. I think about two years ago in September, we started the land business. Ironically, coming full circle with Mike on the podcast with us, we reset to Mike. I kind of backdoor channel into a small group that he was hosting and listened to, actually, ironically, some of your podcasts, Seth, to kind of learn what land is about.

And prior to that, I was flipping houses and I wasn't working at W-2, but I was trying to make a real estate investment path for myself. And knew that I always wanted to get Katie out of her job in the introduction there.

So I had taken those steps when our daughter was born in 2020 to kind of create this lifestyle for us. But I wasn't just getting over that threshold. I wasn't creating enough wealth and cash flow for Katie to leave her job.

So I heard a podcast, started going really deep into the land investing realm and got into a group with Mike and approached him for some private coaching. And he was kind of our stepping stone and getting into land and learning marketing techniques and follow-ups and all the thing that Mike does really well. So that's kind of how we started about two years ago. And ironically, here we are sitting on a podcast with both of you.

Seth: Nice. Well, that's awesome. Mike, were you in Action Academy or like what was the connection there?

Mike: No. So correct me if I'm wrong on this, Brian, but I was on a podcast, talked about team building, different things there. And of course, too, they said, what's your gift? And I'm like, I don't really have a gift.

Maybe I'll start a little internship type program, you know, maybe some mentoring. Started that, just a little free community. We'd meet once a week as a small mastermind. And Brian and Katie joined that.

And then Brian called me out of the blue one day and said, hey, I love what you're doing. I love how you run your business. You structure your team and everything. Teach me. And I said, dude, I don't teach.

And he said, well, will you start? I said, maybe. And I gave him a number that I thought was ridiculous and he thought it was ridiculously low, which we all joke about nowadays. But at the time I'm like, wow, somebody will pay me for this.

So I put together a course for them and they went through it and just crushed it. It was amazing. We laugh about it a ton nowadays. And now it's interesting because now if I have problems in my business, like I'm more than happy to reach out to them just to say, hey, like, what would you guys do here as vice versa. So now we've become biggest thieves and great pals and they're just crushing in the space.

Seth: Yeah. I got to sign up for their course pretty soon. I didn't realize it had only been two years since you've been in this business. So that's like light speed. Like how quickly did you quit your job, Katie? Like how long did that take?

Katie: Yeah. So I kind of joke about it and I say that it took me as long to birth my children as it did for us to birth this business. So it took us a little over nine months until I was ready to quit my W-2.

Seth: Okay. Wow. And Brian, were you working a job too or were you just in house wholesaling or what was the transition?

Brian: I was in house flipping per se. So I was managing a few projects and I was wrapping up some projects during that nine-month period in which Katie was able to leave her job. So no, we just, we went in with Mike's coaching.

It took us, I would say about 30 days to get something under contract. So we had a little one under contract that was like a proof of concept. And then from there, we built a few more things in our pipeline.

And then we had one big deal that allowed us to look at this from a standpoint of like, what's the opportunity cost of Katie leaving her job? And will this, if we could make the run of this. And then I'll, you know, of course, right after that big deal, we had a slump and we had to work ourselves out of it in the mentality ship. We were able to do so.

So yeah, it's been two years and we've been growing pretty quickly and putting everything in place. And with Katie's background, I think you mentioned this obviously in the intros, I'm more of that visionary, move the ball forward, come up with some new ideas.

And Katie's this incredible integrator. So we just have that really cool dynamic of different opposites like the CEO and the CEO. And so I think we do have a slight advantage over your traditional partnership in that respect.

Seth: Did you know that about each other before you were in the land business? Had you worked in business together before? Or did you just kind of discover this as you started doing it?

Katie: I would say that we definitely discovered it as we started going through the process of building the business. Brian had always looked at it as two separate parts to a successful land investing business, having your visionary and then also your integrator.

And when he had approached me and said, hey, do you want to be my business partner? I was like, no, I don't think so. I have a great job. We have two small children. Our life is chaotic. And he was like, okay, just start listening to these podcasts.

And I continued to consume more and more information. And the more that I consumed, I realized that, okay. Maybe we do have skill sets that would be able to build a foundation and make us successful, but we didn't really know the divide and conquer until we got into the weeds of it. And then it was very clearly aligned who was going to be doing what essentially with a ton of overlap.

Seth: I think that's kind of a superpower. I was just at a mastermind event in Wyoming last week. And I was talking to a handful of people about like, what does your spouse do? Do they have anything to do with your business? Like, do they work with you or like they want to work with you?

And myself included, most people are like, no, like they just have no interest or they don't want to do it. We don't work well together or something like that. But if you can be on the same page or the right page in the same book, man, think of how much more you can get done.

Brian: I will say like COVID for us was like a point in which you were forced to be in the same house together, working from home, me doing the house flipping stuff, all that being said, and raising two kids all at once, you're forced to just be with each other day after day, hour after hour.

So I think from there, we figured out where, or, you know, that we could do this potentially together. And Katie came from a sales background and I definitely did not have that skillset. So that is a super valuable skillset that she has honed over time and have gotten really good at that with some training and additional help.

But all that being said, that, that was another piece that I knew was comparative to land is if we're good at sales and we can be pretty good at the rest, then we can have a pretty good business. So once we put all that together and then fine-tuned everything, it became a really viable business for us.

Mike: I'm a little curious here. You guys are in a relationship together. Then you start doing land flipping together. Are there any hard rules you kind of put into place for this? Is it like, hey, five o'clock, we're not talking about business anymore?

Or is it like, if you call me up on a Saturday, I'm happy to talk shop at any time. So is there this work-life balance or is it just a blended of, we'll talk about this anytime, anywhere, doesn't matter what's going on?

Katie: I'll take it. I'll give my perspective and then Brian, you can jump into. I think for us, we were so invested in doing anything and everything that we could to make this successful because going back to a W-2 was essentially like on the line, right? Or figuring out how can we make an income in a different way?

And we were already so invested in making this business successful, that if things came up nights, weekends, we were just doing what we had to do to get the job done. And I think additionally, and this might sound silly, but like, we love talking about our land deals and our business, and that excites us and it fuels us.

So we actually have to say to each other, okay, we got to talk about something else. We got to put this into bed for 30 minutes, but we get excited. So work-life balance, maybe, maybe not, but we're happy.

Mike: This is so cool. I will say, too, one thing that so many things impressed me about you both. One thing I really enjoyed, I got to spend a weekend with them both. And we woke up Sunday morning and it's like 7 a.m. You know, we're still just trying to take the world all in.

And all of a sudden, Brian just says, hey, Katie, like a lead came in. Can you give him a shout? And this is like 7 a.m. on a Sunday. And he's like, yeah, absolutely. And just goes and makes the phone call.

I'm like, I don't have anybody I can reach out to right now to handle anything at this time. And I love my team to death. And they're just, here they are on a Sunday, just making things happen at like 7am. That was so cool to see. It really, really was. I'm like, kudos to you for just going after it.

Seth: When I think of like one of the biggest gifts of a spouse, just in general, is like when life gets hard, like when you're going through some kind of like personal trauma or anxiety or something like that, and your spouse can kind of help you to pull you out of it or just redirect your thoughts and that kind of thing.

You guys ever do that in the business where like one of you is just having a hard time in your task for the day and the other helps get you back on track. Has that ever come up?

Brian: Yeah, definitely. Quite a bit. Lose something, you know, something falls out of contract, something major happens in the business. And I think the benefit going back to that is we're in the business together.

So I think if you have one spouse working in W-2 and then you bet the land business, it's hard to really put that other person's shoes on and understand what that means to them. So in our case, when one person's down for something, the other person is obviously down with them, but we have a full understanding of what it takes to get us both out of that rut and then out onto the next deal.

And trust me, we've been through a lot of those, like most land investors have. So it is really nice to have somebody in the business with you that is also your spouse that can also sympathize with what's going on in the business.

Seth: It's only been two years now. What did your first year look like and how has that changed to year two? I know the land business has been changed a lot over the past 24 months. But, you know, when you look at the first few deals you did or your first few campaigns you did, has things evolved a lot? Like are you going after different kinds of deals or what has changed since you got into this?

Katie: If I think about our first couple of months, our first couple of months were really just us trying to understand like our tech stack. What's the basis process? How do I use all of these tools? How do I use all of my resources? How do I put together a contract that's going to protect us and also get the deal done? Like all those very basic foundational things. That took us a couple of months.

We hired a VA probably about, I don't know, six weeks to eight weeks in after we were sort of doing everything ourself, just to give us a little bit of time back since I was working full time in my W-2 and Brian had some projects going on, plus the kids. So we needed a little bit of support.

After those first couple of months, then we were tested with, okay, how do we sustain this? Like foundationally, we understand what we need to do. We have the sort of process somewhat in place. We have the tech stack, but how do we get some consistency out of what we're putting into the business?

So the next couple of months, we really spent time fine tuning the consistency. And once we have like a full proof of concept that we could do this and we could do this with not as much marketing with also not as much support, then once I quit my W-2, that was when we really scaled up all of our marketing as well as scaled up the team.

So that was really like what one year looked like for us sort of operationally. And year two has been all about training, coaching, developing, and optimization. And that's what I have spent the last year of my life on is ensuring that every single person on our team knows exactly what to do, when to do, why to do it, how to do it.

And I just continue to coach and develop those folks so that we can continue to be even more in strategic roles and continue to grow the team and optimize.

Seth: I want to hear more about that optimization, biggest pain points and the things that you first figured out that you had to improve. But I'm wondering just to understand the basic we have the belt on the land. What does your typical deal look like? Like where are you finding it? What is your purchase price? What is your sale price? Are you doing anything to it before you sell it? Just help us understand your normal deal.

Brian: Yeah, we've got a couple of marketing channels, one being PPC. So we do get some inbound opportunities from that. We love that. It's the most compliant form of marketing we've ever found. So we do like that. And that makes up about half of our opportunities in our business.

And then from there, typical deals, like in our pipeline now we've got a couple of kind of cookie cutter, buy for 30, sell for 60, buy for 50, sell for 100. So some nice spreads in there, but some really simple deals there.

We always look for improvement opportunities. So another thing that we do specifically is we work with realtors a little bit more heavily than maybe others do in the business. We find those to be our kind of really important disposal resources as far as like somebody that knows land that can waffle land on our behalf.

We do like the droner aspect and getting comfortable, like a droner looking at the land, but we really want a realtor to tell us what we don't know and some things that maybe we can't see on land ID. What the neighborhoods look like, all the circumstances that would go to selling this property as fast as possible.

Because we all know that the market has shifted a little bit here recently and days of market have extended a little bit. And we always go to that realtor and say, hey, if we want to sell this in 45 days with us, what's our price? Now, where do we need to be at?

We usually already have it under agreement at that point. So we're already kind of stuck at our price, but I do all the comping in the business and that's something I plan to source out in the future. But right now I want that immediate first look at every property.

And then we have those trusted realtors in the area. And then we always ask that realtor, what's our return on investment if we were to put a driveway in? We always perk, I'd say about 90% of the time we're perking our properties to make sure that that can be transferred to the next owner and we eliminate any opportunities of not having a septic system there.

So all that being said, and then we're also doing some subdivide marketing. So we've got an underwriting team that does some underwriting for subdivides and we do subdivide specific marketing for those. So we've got a couple of subdivides in the works at the moment.

And, you know, we just think that's the evolution of the businesses. The flipping will always be there and it'll keep the lights on. It will be the determining factor for all the operating expenses you have. But I really think that the subdivides in general will be the large chunks of money that will be, you know, something that we can, again, travel the world and do these cool opportunities with our kids.

So we're kind of looking at both sides of the business simultaneously, but that's kind of usually our structure when the deal goes under contract or heavy on the realtor dispop.

Seth: Is it safe to assume you work in just like a handful of consistent markets again and again, or are you like all over the place?

Brian: It is pretty safe to say that. We work in about four states and we like those. We like the ability to sell them relatively quickly in those states. And we think we have a little bit of a competitive advantage as far as our efficiencies, like Katie has mentioned, our ability to get in touch with those people in a kindly manner.

I know everybody has said this in the past, but like you do talk to a lot of sellers where nobody has picked up the phone and actually made that conversation. So we pride ourselves in that. In the team and the structure that Katie has created in order to be just a little bit better than other land investors in those maybe saturated markets.

Seth: You mentioned that you work with realtors a lot. How often do you end up with a lousy realtor? Or do you pretty much always hit it out of the park because you're working in these consistent markets and you just know who's good?

Brian: It's happened for sure. I would say a handful of times. What we have done recently is actually going, if the realtor doesn't reach a certain market, which is understandable, they've got an hour or two hour radius in which they're going to drive.

We asked for that one core realtor to do some referrals and then they will actually interview that person, give them kind of the synopsis of what we do and how we do it to kind of see if that realtor is a good fit. So we've been doing that recently and that's helped out quite a bit, letting the realtor do the legwork and they get a referral fee from that.

Seth: Yeah. You mentioned doing PPC advertising. So I know a handful of people doing that. And I'm just curious, what are like the best and worst things about that? There's good and bad to every marketing, of course.

Brian: The best I would say is the highest motivation, right? You're going to get people that, you know, have a greater reason to sell than most of your typical sellers that you're reaching out for that you're just trying to catch them at a point in time. So I think that the highest motivation is probably the best. And the deep flow can be pretty good.

You know, we're getting a decent amount of leads per week. The worst is the amount of time you have to bridge that gap. When that lead comes in, you've really got to get on the phone with them right away and understand because they're probably clicking on multiple ads as, you know, yours is the first or the second on the list.

So they probably click that lad. So we want to be in touch with them within a few minutes of their submission. So the speed to lead is very important there. The worst is you're just, it's hard to pick your property type. You can tell Google over time what you like, but it's never going to be perfect. The algorithm in the background.

So you're going to get some info lots and things that you're not typically used to buying. And those are fine, but you're paying for those leads. So the type of property getting isn't always exactly what you're looking for is when you're doing your outbound marketing. And then the last thing is just the cost.

It's just going to be more costly than most marketing channels. but trying to offset that with motivation and being really good at that process of getting in touch with them very quickly.

Seth: Well, on the cost. So like, what is the cost? Like how expensive is this compared to direct mail or like, what is your ROAS on this kind of thing?

Brian: Yeah. Current ROAS with the deals that we have in the pipeline is about eight or nine to one. So we feel it's a pretty good ROAS as compared to mail. I've heard a friend of mine that does mail right now, and don't quote me on this, so there could be other people out there do a lot more mail and we don't specifically do it, but I've heard that mail is around a three to one or four to one.

So I do feel it could be a little bit better than mail, but the cost that we're spending on a monthly basis is kind of pretty much consistent with sending about 20,000 mailers a month. So not going to throw out a probably a dollar amount on it because each one's going to be a little bit different, but we are in four states to do that.

So you do have to spread out your funds per state to make sure you're penetrating that state deep enough to show up in enough searches and keyword generation is very important. We do pay a third party for that to really manage that for us.

So I would say it's pretty equivalent to sending out large mailers. And I believe that the return on that aspect currently is a little bit better, but it just takes a little time for those deals to go full cycle to really kind of measure that.

Seth: When I think about, say, if I'm working in a few consistent states. If I'm doing direct mail, there are things I can do to control, you know, where the leads are coming from and even like what types of properties are going to be responding to me and property owners. Like there's lots of ways you can sort your list to isolate that kind of thing.

When I think of PPC, and by the way, if people don't know what PPC is, that's pay-per-click. Are we talking like Google specifically or are there other places where this is being done?

Brian: This is Google specifically.

Seth: Okay. Are there ways that you can control specifically which markets they're coming from? or like, I only want properties worth 30,000 and up. Do you just kind of have to take whatever comes in?

Brian: You kind of have to take whatever comes in. The longer you're doing it, the longer you can do some backend communication with Google. So it starts to learn what you like. So basically what we do is we have it integrated with Stride. And then when we move it to a different bucket, it tells Google what we liked about that and what we didn't like.

If it goes to our dead lead bucket, then it tells Google that we didn't like that lead. So in the future, hopefully the algorithm will push that type of lead to us again in the future. So it is a learning curve and it does take that's the other thing about Google is it takes time, right?

It takes some time. The first 30, 60 days, you're going to just get off and running. You're going to get random leads in different areas. But another thing that Google has done for us or PPC has done for us is it's kind of created a Google likes us in a hole, basically.

So it's like almost improved our SEO. So we're getting weeds that are people filling out on our website from states that we're not even marketing to. So that has been another kind of tertiary benefit of doing PPC is our SEO and in such a sense has improved where people that looking to buy sell land are clicking on our site and never using our ads to do so.

So those are like, in essence, free leads to us, too. So that in general, with everything else has kind of led us to down this path of trying to do this long term.

Seth: How often do you encounter like scammers and title fraud, given that these are coming from online. Is that like a common thing you come across?

Brian: That is a very good point. That is definitely a con and I definitely miss that. So we've had a few of those where they can say they own this property, fill it out, and then it's up to you and title. There's definitely some red flags that do pop up in your conversations with them.

If they're not willing to get on the phone, if they sign the contract relatively quickly, if they're not pushing in negotiations, some of those things should start stacking up in your brain and start when you send this over to title, which we always do, then we let title know, hey, we want to understand what your notary process is, making sure you're controlling that.

If there's a verification process early on and we want to understand if the seller has done that, usually there's like an ID thing and they have to match that to their face. All that being said, it is higher and a little bit more rampant in the PPC for sure, since it is something that anybody can fill out and submit to you.

Seth: Switch your gears a little bit. So how are you getting your properties sold? I know you said you use realtors a lot? Do you use them for every single deal or are there ever times when you don't use a realtor?

Brian: No, I would say about 95% of the time it's all realtor-based sales for us. We've tried a few self-listing and some of that works from time to time. We've just not had a lot of luck. We always do the Facebook first and try to get a feel for the market there.

But most of the time, I would say almost every time actually, we're using a realtor and just getting that sign out front, getting their feedback. Following up with the realtors on a weekly basis, making fresh reductions when necessary and just having those constant communication with the realtors once they hit the market.

Seth: So in the 5% of times when you're not using a realtor, what's happening now?

Brian: Something's just going horribly wrong. Yeah, no, that's just a self-listing service that's maybe we've sold it on Facebook ourselves. You know, something got lucky during our process early on where we found a buyer early and then we close on it.

You know, we just bought a landlocked property where we, you know, didn't need a realtor for that and found a neighboring person to buy that. So there are times from here and there, but we usually are marketing in areas where we already have realtors. And then as soon as we get that contract signed, we're beginning that due diligence process with them.

Seth: So how many people are on your team right now?

Katie: There's nine of us today, and that includes Brian and I.

Seth: And did you start hiring team members like almost immediately? Or did you have to go through a number of campaigns or something before we decided, oh, we need people now? And then who did you hire first?

Katie: Yes. So probably about six to eight weeks in, we hired our first VA. They had come on to the team to manage some of our marketing platforms, as well as just like general administrative support. It really wasn't until I was ready to quit my W-2 that we ended up bringing on call power because I was doing all the sales calls myself. So taking on all call ones, all offer calls, everything.

And yeah. And then once I actually had enough time, because it was a battle between, do you just do it? Because I didn't really have time to be doing it and be coaching and training and developing somebody properly when I had a full-time job. So once I actually had that bandwidth, then we were able to start expanding our team even further.

Seth: I know you guys have a really successful business and the team is a big part of that. Is there anything you've learned about like where and how do you find the right people or how do you make sure you're getting the right person right out of the gate?

Katie: Yeah, so we have primarily used onlinejobs.ph or Upwork to identify our employees or referrals too. So, you know, within the community, there are a lot of people that are either pivoting, or there's somebody that requires different hours, maybe they're looking to do something a little bit different within the business, and they just don't have an opportunity where they currently are.

So either referrals internally in the land investing community, and then also referrals from our current employees. So those are the four main places where we've been able to hire great talent from. One of our employees celebrated a year in July, and we have another employee celebrating a year today.

So retention is very important to the success of our business because I pour so much of my time and my energy into coaching and developing our team and ensuring that our processes are smooth so that we can, you know, maintain them and keep them happy, right?

We genuinely believe that our employees really love working with us. So when I create a culture of accountability, sustainability, but also fun.

Mike: I don't want to speak for Mike, but Mike, I feel like a lot of your time goes into building and maintaining and, you know, building the culture of your team. Katie, it sounds like maybe that's true for you as well. I mean, would you say that, like, I guess this question is for both of you, Mike and Katie, does all of your time go into that?

Like, do you do anything where it's like you are actually implementing the business or is that pretty much your full-time job now is just making sure the team is firing on all cylinders?

Mike: I think earlier on, you pour into your team more and more. What's nice about that is as you start pouring into people and they feel how much you care, they now kind of learn the ability of what does good leadership look like? What does pouring into others look like?

So now they start managing other people on your team and taking care of each other just as you take care of them. So I think over time, you almost have this flywheel of where new people coming in feel love and support right off the bat because now their other associates make them feel love and supported because those associates have been working with you for a while now.

So person celebrating their one year anniversary on Katie and Brian's team, anyone new coming into their fold is going to say, this is an amazing organization. And I will say, I take a lot of pride in how I run my team. I've stolen a lot of tips and tricks from Katie and Brian as well with ways they go about taking care of their team or sending them gifts, which I hope they're going to get into, or I'll tell everybody what they do there.

But they have some really creative ways of just creating lists and really making their employees feel seen and heard and loved. And it's beautiful what you guys are doing. It really is.

Seth: Yeah, that's awesome. Let's hear your tricks, Katie. I got to hear this.

Katie: Well, the first question, what you had asked was, where do I spend most of my time? And it's just more recently started to pivot to where I'm spending a little bit more of my time being a bit more of a visionary because I'm more focused on strategic optimization within every single piece of our business. I'm still doing sales calls.

I'm still running coaching calls and some one-on-ones within the team. I still run our level 10 meetings. So operationally, I'm heavily, heavily involved, but I am just not on the phone with sellers as much as I used to be because I've taught my team.

They're making the majority of our offers at this point, unless it's more of a complex deal or it's more of a subdivide type of project. And of course, I'm going to take on those conversations, but our team has really stepped up.

And to Mike's point, we've started to create some, and I wouldn't say leadership levels per se, but elevation levels within our company where people are more responsible, not necessarily for the success of somebody else, but for the success of a business area.

And they've shown the interest in wanting to learn more, grow their skillset, grow their career, which has also then helped take different types of tasks off my back, giving people additional responsibility and the opportunity just to continue to learn and grow within our organization. So that's what we've been heavily focused on quite a bit more recently.

Seth: So is there something you send gifts to people or something or like, is there some interpersonal relationship hacks that you know to keep people particularly happy on your team or what do you do?

Katie: We've done some different things in the past. For a while, I was running some like Amazon wishlist contests. Where our team would basically go in and create a wishlist of the things that they were interested in.

Sometimes we would pick a theme like, all right, the group decides, you know, it's health and wellness this month. So people would like add what they wanted. And then if we hit certain thresholds, you know, that would be certain tiers within that wishlist. And we would be able to then send items to them.

But it was fun because they would get to put a couple of things on there. It was kind of like a surprise, like what's coming. We also run monthly contests based upon agreements. And it doesn't matter what your role is within our organization. Every single person's role is just as responsible for the success or the failure of this business than anybody else.

And so the contest is group wide. So what's good for the goose is good for the gander. And so, you know, essentially the more agreements that we have minus netting out what we've canceled will then lead us to, again, a financial incentive for the team. And that's just something we do every single month just to get people excited.

Our Discord blows up with memes every single morning, whether it's a tired cat drinking a cup of coffee or a crazy duck running around saying good morning. And we just like to do like, I don't know, fun stuff like that. The communication is almost obscene how much we're all talking to each other, but this is our family at this point as well.

So, and we want people to feel supported and seen and heard and loved. And I think that those are the things that not just the financial piece, but how good you feel about yourself coming to work every day and knowing that what you're doing is making an impact, not just on the organization, but on everybody's life success within this group.

So it's certainly family of family and everybody has the exact same opportunity for financial gain.

Mike: So to touch on this briefly too, I think this is a huge golden nugget you're giving away here, Katie. I think most of us as entrepreneurs, we just see money everywhere. And then, of course, what we want to do with our team is just give them more money. It's like, oh, that's why they have a job. They have a job just to have money.

The thing is, though, when you start giving people money, it just goes into their bank account and they don't think about it anymore. Or if you actually send them something tangible, something they can hold, something they share with their friends, they share with their family, it carries so much more weight.

And I'll never forget when Brian and Katie told me this, I was talking to him. I'm like, yeah, you know, whenever when your work anniversaries come up or birthdays, I have to reach out to Imi. She was interviewed recently on Seth's podcast, but I always reach out to her and say, can you schedule something for these people, get them flowers or cakes or whatever.

And it's always a logistical nightmare. And Brian's like, dude, just have them make an Amazon wishlist. I'm like, what are you talking about? And I'm just thinking like, nah, Amazon, this is just like a North America or first world country thing.

It's like, no, these Amazon wishlists, you can send them anywhere, whether you're going to Pakistan, Philippines, it doesn't really matter. And what a cool way to your team to let you know what they want, but then you to fulfill those needs.

So that way too, when they're playing with that new camera or shirt or mug or whatever in the world you send them, it's just like, yeah, no, I got this from my company. And it's just such a cool show off thing. I think it's amazing you guys do that. I stole that from you. I recommend everyone listening and steal that from them because it's such a way to make your employees feel loved and cared about at a very nice, deep level.

Seth: Yeah. Well, if anybody wants to see my Amazon wishlist, I'm going to post it in the show notes. Definitely check that out, please.

So we kind of know where a lot of Katie's time goes. Brian, where does most of your time go? What's your main area that you own in the business?

Brian: Yeah, I own comping. So comping is something, like I said, I want to be able to touch and see every deal as it comes in. So I want to right now I'm running that on the front end. And then everything post contract, everything from the signed contract on going forward is mine as well.

So all the engineering, all the communication with the agents, most of the communication with the seller, unless Katie has had a need her to step in and smooth over a relationship, something that's going on that we need heavy discussions with.

I can take a lot of those conversations too, but if Katie's already forged that, it's a good time for her to step in on those. So that's kind of where my hat falls is everything post-contract and then all that comping on the front end. And then any kind of contract signatures and all that, that's on Katie's kind of front end plate and everything back end is mine.

Seth: It's interesting. We're actually talking with somebody in our mastermind this past week about comping. That's like the one part in this particular guy's business that he owns and doesn't want to give up. for you, is it because you really enjoy that process or is it like not trusting other people to do it right? I mean, it is a huge, very important thing to get right. But what draws you to that particular task?

Brian: I just think that looking at thousands of properties like we all have kind of gives us the leg up and hiring for that and training for that is going to take some time. And I don't want to rush that. So I actually have a realtor call me now on an offer that we.

All that being said, now we're going to watch Brian handle an offer call live, right? Here's an offer negotiation here. But from a comping standpoint, it's such an important, it sets the tone, right? So if you miscomp it or something's off and the LMs then are going to present an offer in which you're going to have to either go back from or cancel.

We don't ever want to do that. We want to present, put our best foot forward every time. And especially subdivide stuff, which is much more complex. Because I want to have my hands in that. So for now, I own that piece and I do want to train for it long term. And it is definitely an art and it takes some time and I'm definitely not the best at it.

But I think I know enough to get us to a point where we can make accurate offers and make the deals make sense. So I'm owning that for now. And I've given it up and taken it back a few times in the business. But the extra time we have here in Uruguay just gives me the opportunity to just kind of be a little bit more involved in the business. And I want to take advantage of that.

Seth: Well, as somebody very experienced in comping, I'm wondering, has it ever happened where you comped a property and like you got it wrong? Like there was some material fact that was just impossible to see or very difficult to see when you kind of realized after the fact. I think every land investor has been there when you do this long. Yeah, is that a common thing or have you kind of just seen it all and you always nail it every time?

Brian: I can't say I nail it every time, but sometimes it's as simple as you missed a floodplain overlay. You know, those things just happened recently where I missed a floodplain overlay. I had the wetlands on there for some reason. The floodplain didn't pop up when I was looking at it.

So, you know, we're in the middle of buying something that is a floodplain and working with a real if you're on that one. And usually we do a slight discount on pricing on that just because the buyer pool is going to be a little bit smaller when you go to this boat. So all that being said, I do make mistakes.

But, you know, so there's land ID, unfortunately, where we bought things with no wetlands on them with the filter on. And then we come to find out it's 100 percent a swamp. So all that being said, there's some things you can't account for. And that's why we like that realtor on our side.

And because we wouldn't have known that without them in that case. So there are definitely mistakes to be made, but I'd like to at least I own those mistakes. And then I can walk myself back from doing it.

Seth: Yeah. Yeah. I wonder if there's ever going to be the day when you can just like push a button and some software looks at everything and it's always accurate and doesn't miss anything. It kind of seems impossible, but I don't know.

Brian: I'm going to leave that to Mike. I think if anybody can do it, Mike can do it. So I'm waiting on the day. I want to be the beta tester on that. I want to have the first ownership of that. So I think Mike can do it through AI.

Katie: Yeah. I think too, in the season of optimization that we're in right now, Brian handling the comping 100% right now, what it has really done is it's sped up our time to make offers. Because he is comping every property prior to these lead managers having their booked conversations.

So they already know what the target is, what the max is, if we're going to be interested in doing any type of EMD, what our closing timeframe is. So they have all the power to be able to negotiate on that first call and anchor them and potentially call them back in 10 minutes with a with a formal written offer.

At the end of the day, like Brian and I don't really have a number two, or technically maybe a number three, I don't know. But we don't have anybody else operationally that is under us that is approving the deals on our behalf. So he's having to review and look at them anyways. So with him being on the front end, we are just moving a lot faster.

Seth: Yeah. Yeah, I can totally see that. Well, kind of touched a little bit on software, but on the software front, and yes, this is kind of a leading question. Are there any specific tools or resources you found helpful in your business? Like what is your go-to CRM, just for example?

Katie: Just for example. So I'm not sure if you guys have heard of it or not, but we're actually using a new CRM that was built by land investors for land investors. it's called Stride.

Seth: Yeah, I think I've heard about this.

Mike: I've been hearing a lot about that.

Katie: Are you tipster? Exactly, exactly. So we switched over to Stride a couple of months ago at this point. We had used two formal CRMs prior to. So we've actually tracked our business five different ways in the last two years. We are done CRM searching.

Again, all that we're really working on now is really trying to fully understand all the capabilities of Stride because there are so many different things that you can customize to have it be where your business is today versus where your business is going to be a year from now.

So we're really trying to understand like everything that we can do without essentially over engineering our process and leveraging the automation, some of the tools, some of the tracking and reporting. How can we use that to even more streamline our internal, external communications.

Seth: Well, I know with Stride, there's a lot that it can do. Like you mentioned, is there like a, I don't know, one or two or three particular functions about it that have been most helpful to you? Or like when you log into Stride, what's the first thing you go to, to check out where things are at?

Katie: Oh, my smart lists. I love those. So yes. And that's, it's super helpful as an owner operator, but the functionality for the team members. So it's, it's different, right? So if I'm going let's say I'm trying to look and see where are all of my sellers that have, we've got contracts out to, right? Or contracts pending, right? What does, what does that look like?

If I've already pulled and created a smart list based upon that criteria, then anytime I go back to that link, it's dynamic. So as you move things in or out, your smart list is always going to pull what's in that stager status.

So then I can very quickly flip through every record in that stager status to be able to make a determination on what's happening within that area of the business. And then for our team members, when they create their smart list, you can add an automation with a support dialer so that they're able to go to maybe their double dial bucket.

Add on their automation for their dialer, and very quickly start to be able to do their follow up call. And as well as like the mass follow up. So let's say if there were, you know, 15 people in that bucket, they hadn't moved anywhere else, which means that they're all basically at the same status.

Now you can go ahead and click all those folks and send them a follow up message. Hey, you know, I just left your voicemail was reaching out, yada, yada. And so we're just falling up so much faster because of those smart lists. So that's one thing that we love. Brian, is there anything that you want to say like specifically?

Brian: I kind of use it from a comping level. Same with my smart list. That's what I start with every day I come in, I click, go through my list. And then another thing for me, actually, I will say, I like the number of boards you can have. So you're not restricted. You can have your stride be whatever you envision it to be.

So for us, we have the seller board, we have a title dispo board, we have a cold leads board, a dead leads board, all that helps us with our PPC community back to Google. And it helps us organize all of our data much better.

And we also have a person specifically in our team that calls through those cold leads. So we have a cold lead bucket, specifically with multiple buckets built out of that a table, then buckets. And then our one of our team members kind of lives in there because that is somebody, I think we've mentioned this a few times in various places, but those are people that said yes to us at one point, and we just want to still be in front of them.

We want to still make those calls. And so the fact that we could organize Stride any way we like and not be restricted to the platform itself has been a nice piece for our business.

Katie: What I was telling somebody recently when we were kind of, I was on a coaching call, we were hashing through like, what can we do in your business to get you more organized? And I was talking about stride and I said, you know, everybody's brain is totally different.

And the fact that Brian and I have to mesh our brains together in this business, Stride just gives you the ability to basically customize every board, every field, how you want things coming in and out, how you want your notifications, how you want people being assigned or unassigned to different areas.

And so you can basically put your brain into the system and it can function the way that you think it should be best properly done. And that is something that has just been, you know, a major game changer for us because we're not limited in how we can sort of customize the platform to support all the different initiatives that we have.

Mike: Mike, is there anything you've learned from Brian and Katie about how to use Stride, just seeing the way that they've implemented things?

Mike: Yeah, I have to say, Brian and Katie, you stride in ways that I have not even thought about or imagined. And even today, as they're talking about it, they're like, Oh, yeah, we just put things in different buckets, then it talks back to Google. They say that so nonchalantly, like, yeah, I'm like, how do you talk to Google? Like, is there like a 1-800 number to call or something? Like, send me their info, man. I got to tell Google some things.

Oh, but I love that. I think at the end of the day, you guys are action takers. That is what it is. You take massive action on things that you do. You learn the systems, you learn the software, you figure out how to use it best for you.

I'm so scared because when this episode comes out, people are going to start pinging me like, Mike, how can I back in this to talk to Google for me based on the bucket? And I'm going to be like, oh, I better talk to Brian and Katie before this airs.

But you guys really go above and beyond, start implementing API keys and different web hooks and workflows in there to really make it what you want. I know you've created your own specialized dashboards to see exactly what your team's numbers are, their calls, everything there. I mean, it's incredible to see.

How much you've really owned it and really made it your own. Because that's one thing Seth and I are very proud of with Stride. But also probably one of the number one complaints that we get is you can do almost anything in the world. And that's great.

But it's also if you just want to plug and play, it's challenging there where we try to make it as plug and play as possible. But it's also I love how you said it, Katie, like put your own brain into it, you know, throw Brian's brain in there and have it work what works best for you.

Because the way that you use it is different than how my team uses it, which is different than how a hundred other people use it as well. And I just think that's so cool. I mean, I'm learning more about our product, just seeing how you all use it as well, which is incredible.

Seth: Is it a pretty big deal in managing your team? Like, is that a helpful aspect of it in terms of like, does every team member have their own account where they can get in and you can kind of track what they're doing or what they're up to?

Katie: Yes. Every single team member has their own login. Everybody is responsible for some part of the business that's interacting within Stride. Yes, we use Discord for like our general communication, but anything that is in regards to a specific record, all of those tags are being done internally within the system.

So unless something requires like an additional hello, we're talking within Stride in regards to deals that are in process.

Brian: I will say, too, once we got into Stride, we knew it was like going back to your point, Mike, initially it seems like it can do too much. Right. And people do get a little overwhelmed with that. But we also we got in. We knew enough about a CRM to be dangerous.

And then we worked with one of our team members, our VAs that had a technical aspect to him. And we knew he had the capability of doing that. And we put a lot of ownership in him. And that's what we do with our team in general. It's like, OK, this is yours. Let's learn it together.

We wanted to do X, Y, and Z. All right, we need to make a support call. We need to talk to support. This is what we're thinking. And it did take us a little time to build this little Stride ecosystem the way we wanted. But we put a lot of emphasis into that VA.

And that just kind of goes back to our team and what we built and the culture that we do have, luckily. That VA just took ownership of that. And then everything going forward that we need tweaked or added or ideas that we have that come from our brains that we want into Stride.

We kind of ping them. they work on it, we adjust it until it's the way we think it should be. And then we move on to the next thing that we want to add to Stride, which is always growing in our case.

Mike: Absolutely. I love this. I'm curious. So this is the third CRM you've been in in two years. For anyone thinking about shifting to a different CRM, no matter what it is, what would you recommend doing for the migration process?

Not just so much getting your data over, but more of like teaching your team how to do it. Is this just a hard stop on the CRM you're using? It's just, let's export all the data today and join Stride tomorrow and just start at zero. Or what do you recommend for a migration process like this?

Because any new software, no matter what it is, it's hard, it's challenging. And especially a CRM that can be so robust is even more challenging sometimes. What does that look like?

Katie: So prior to us ever actually making the switch, we got everybody into Stride. And they also had the ability to go into the training center. So there's tons of different demos and tutorials in there.

So we certainly had them have a couple of a week runway to be able to just get familiar with the platform and then be able to log in, play around with things. So we did give them a little bit of time for that first.

And then I think too, like key, a couple of key setups when you do get everybody in, like get your phone numbers verified, get your calendar set up. Like there's a lot of like basic tech things that is best to be done prior to ever migrating your data or even don't get your Zapier set up until all those sort of basic things are in place.

And that's generally the easy part is just getting through some of these checklists, like technical administrative things. And then I do think that over we let them overlap for maybe two months just to make sure all the quirks and the kinks are removed. We move the data over. We use Fiverr and some of those things rather than trying to do that ourselves.

And we did all those things. We'd let them overlap for a little bit. And then we just made the hard pivot over a weekend is what we decided to do. So we just locked off a weekend with RBA and we just said, okay, it's time to go.

And we just had all the data moved. And then we just lived in that going forward. And then we used the previous CRM a little bit to make sure all the kinks were worked out. But we just had to make a hard stop at that point.

Seth: CRM thing is very powerful, but it can be a big move to transition to it.

Katie: Yes.

Seth: I know when I got started with it, I kind of just spaced it out a little bit and said, okay, week one, I'm going to learn how email works. Week two, I'm going to learn how the phone works. Just kind of one step at a time, kind of learn to master it.

Katie: I don't think we were that intentional, but we did have like a project management log and timeline. And we worked with one of our team members who Brian was mentioning. Funny story. So this past week on our level 10 meeting.

Stride always has a very specific place within that conversation because we're always talking about what else can we do to improve other people's processes and all the different areas of the business. And my team member said, he goes, why do I always have so many things on the to-do list compared to everybody else?

Well, this is the core area of where we house our business. And we're just going to keep going as things come up and keep solving. If we can do that from a tech perspective, that's just going to continue to optimize the business.

Seth: Oh, that's awesome. Appreciate hearing your feedback. Anything else you want to add, Mike?

Mike: No, but I'm curious, pivoting a little bit here. You work with a lot of other investors. You see land investors coming up, starting out who are new into the mix. And you probably work with some who have been in the space for a little bit.

And I will say out of so many people I've met in the space, your names come up so frequently. I know Ajay sings your praises as well. You just have really done.

Seth: He's the best.

Mike: And you guys have been such big disruptors in this space. And I feel like your success, I mean, if people reach out to me, I don't really coach publicly much, but every now and then, every now and then somebody will reach out to me privately and ask if I can do something.

And so often they say, yeah, well, I want to be successful like Brian and Katie. And I'm like, well, good luck. But really, what is the trick or what do feel like that really distinguishes you from the others out there?

Because you've had this level of success that, I think is a bit abnormal in this space with how short of a time you've been in here and you've grown it so quickly. I mean, year one, you're leaving your very nice W-2 while having two kiddos and now living in Uruguay for three months for fun and seeing the world. What's the secret sauce?

Katie: Not giving up when it gets tough because it's going to. It's super exciting when you're first building your business and doing some of the foundational stuff. If somebody's especially if somebody is going to coach you and sort of point you in the right direction and give you the roadmap. Like that stuff is, it's fun. It's easy. You can check the boxes and get stuff done and get your foundation.

Maybe it's still exciting when you're hiring a team member too, but sort of after that dust fades and it's really time to make sure that everything that you've put your money into it, whether it's people or systems that you are driving that forward.

I think that that's where it starts to get difficult. The biggest thing for us, I think that's really helped our success was we did most of this business by ourself for an extended period of time. And we just kind of gridded through it so that we knew what it was like so that we could coach, train and develop other people.

But it wasn't without us being heavily involved in every faceted the business for an extended period of time. With coaching other people, what I'm seeing is that there's this five months to eight to nine months period where it's just really hard because you've invested a lot of time and energy and funds into building this business, but the runway is taking a little bit longer today to see everything start to come full circle.

So you just have to to keep going because this does work.

Seth: When you think about what some of your biggest challenges were when you got started versus what your biggest challenges are now, what were some of those? How have they shifted over time?

Katie: My biggest challenge was that I knew absolutely nothing about investing in real estate whatsoever. So I had a sales background and I have a leadership background. Worked for 13 years in recruiting and sales leadership with large teams within a very KPI, fast-paced driven, you're only as good as your last deal world.

So I felt like I was built for some facets of this business.

Brian: But Brian, what are you? Yeah, it's just building this marketing machine, right? Because at the end of the day, it's what we are, is a marketing company with a focus in land. So building that and learning that as you go, it's like you're building the house as you're trying to live in it you put the brick and brick and brick on top of each other and then you know you realize you missed a window you got to go back and take that apart and put it back together so.

And then it's all for us too is like not trying to do too much at a time it's you know doing a CRM and starting a cold calling and we did two or three things at once and switched a platform that we're using for marketing all at once and that was stressful so just i think for us was building this marketing company because i knew enough about real estate to know how to dispo i I think that's something that I was pretty good at with the house flipping and.

But the marketing component and building the company and building the culture, that was something just that was more foreign to us.

Seth: I wonder if there is a direct correlation between being a good salesperson and being a good leader. If there's like a Venn diagram of those things overlap a lot, it seems like there would be some, when I think of like some of the best CEOs and leaders of, companies in the world, they're probably really good salespeople too. Do you think that's accurate, Katie, or are they just kind of different things?

Katie: Yeah. So I see it one way, but not the other, right? Because I could certainly more so see it as people who are good leaders are good salespeople, but I certainly don't, especially with all my time in the corporate world, there were a ton of very, very successful salespeople.

I was their leader and they were making much more money than I was because they could grit and grind and get stuff done. But having additional responsibility outside of that, that was just not within their runway.

Seth: Yeah. I wonder how much of successful salesmanship is being a good wordsmith and saying the right things and the right emotional intelligence and all that. And how much of it is just grit and determination? Like, just keep going. Like, just don't stop. I know they're both required, but I wonder like which one would be more important in that equation.

Brian: I think just continuing to push forward is so important here. And I think it's hard to get caught up and just stuck in that analysis paralysis, even after you've had some success. I mean, I remember you calling me, Brian, you're probably about somewhere in that four to six month mark in the space.

And you had some really good success on the front end. And now things are starting to stagnate a little bit, not too much going on. You're like, Mike, I don't know about this. This isn't working. That isn't working.

Mike: And it's just like, yeah, welcome to the game, Brian. Have fun, man. I mean, one month you're on top of the world. Next year, debating why you ever started this. Why even listen to podcasts? Worst decision ever.

Brian: Kind of that belly despair and having that network of people, I think is super important, whether it be Mike and other land investors, or for me, Action Academy of people that are, going through those trials and tribulations of entrepreneurship, there are a lot of them.

And to be able to dust off your boots and pick yourself up and get back at it and keep charging through the next wall that's going to be there for a barrier for you is difficult. And a lot of people do stop at some point and they stop at that next wall and say, you know what, this is just too much for me.

Once one or two deals go sideways, you lose some hope. So it's not all rainbows and sunshine all the time. But if you can just kind of see through that and know that the next opportunity, and it could be just through that next door and continue to the market and continue the follow up, continue that, you know, you could replace that lost deal or whatever it is. So if you can pick yourself up and have that community, I think that's super important.

Seth: In that situation, Brian, I don't know exactly what was going on, but when you kind of felt like you were hitting a plateau or a lull or things were going well, what happened to get out of that? Like you just kept going, like doing the same things or did you pivot and do something specific different that made all the difference?

Brian: answer. I've talked to a number of people like this over the past year where there was a time when they were just killing it. And now they're just like contemplating getting out because things just aren't working anymore. I'd love to tell them like, just do this, you know, do what Brian did, whatever that was to keep going and find success. What was that for you?

Brian: I don't think there's ever that one answer, right? Of the one thing that you can do differently. I think it's that community again, going back to that, asking multiple people, what do I do here? What are your thoughts on this? This has happened to me. What have you done in this situation?

And honestly, a lot of it for us has been coaching. We work with Mike, we work with Justin Pichet, we work with multiple coaches along the way that have helped us kind of overcome those stagnations. And I think that's something that we're always going to build into our operating expenses going forward is having that guidance in land.

So I think A, if you can do that in land, I think it's super beneficial, as well as, you know, having the community to kind of overcome those things. And for us, like, what specifically did I do? It was you know, going back to Katie and it was having that one person that you could just kind of be in that despair for a little bit and know that the next day is going to hopefully get a little bit better and a little bit better and making fine adjustments.

I don't think it's going from, this is working with pivot in 90 degrees or 180 degrees in another direction. It's making fine tune adjustments to the business, if nothing at all, just continue to forge for it. So it's definitely dependent on what that specific situation is.

But again, just coming back to community, keep trudging through it. And there may be something on the other side is this kind of always like a needle in a haystack type of marketing we're in. You have to send a lot of pieces of mail or a lot of text or a lot of whatever you're doing to find that next opportunity.

And then fine tuning your process and training and all the things that we've done in our business to make this kind of like an engine that goes on its own. So I wish I had a good answer for you, but we just picked it up and talked to each other quite a bit.

Seth: Well, I think it is a good answer because in a nutshell, what I hear you saying is people. People are the ones that you can talk to, make all the difference, change your mindset, change your approach.

And the reason I think that's notable is because I know a number of land investors that work as an island. They don't want to network. They don't want to talk to people. They just want to be on their own, keep their head down. They don't want to share their trade secrets and all this stuff. And I think it's hurting them.

I can't even tell you the benefit I've had just going to different events, just getting on calls, like just getting other people's perspectives. I'm so lucky I get to do these kind of podcast interviews because like I get all these different perspectives that I absolutely would not have on my own.

So to those of you out there who are introverts like me and you're scared to talk to people or don't want to or whatever, just realize you're probably missing out by not doing that.

Katie: I would say like 90% of the time when we sit down to try and solution for something, we're not talking about the problem and the solution. We're talking about who do we know who can give us some clarity, whether that's if it's more of a sales based solution that we're trying to hunt for.

Or, you know, hey, Katie, do you think that this is something you can bring to Land Closers Academy? Or is this something that you want to go direct to Ajay with? Something that we want to ping Mike about? Or, hey, do I want to take this back to my pod with an action academy?

Having those people has been so crucial for our mental stability within this industry. And that's outside of just having that one-on-one coach or person that you essentially hire to help grow your business.

But the people all around you who may or may not have dealt with something similar or have, you know, a different opinion than what you do, I think has been super helpful. And Brian had been in communities much longer than I had because his runway was so much longer having the availability to do that.

And once I started to join, that really made me feel like, especially from an acquisitions and sales focused operator, that I had support outside of just Brian to continue to grow our business together.

Brian: But what I think really happened, Brian, why you got out of that funk that one time is I think I got a contract signed and then we were like, back up.

Katie: The contract will always get you out of the slump.

Mike: I have to say, I have so much respect for how much education you both are constantly pursuing. I mean, you worked with me, then you worked with Justin. Justin's phenomenal. We all know that. you're now working with an organization to really help you scale at larger levels, create the right systems and processes.

I mean, continuing education is so big in your life. And I feel like that's really what sets you apart. I think a lot of us, we take the first guru course to begin with, and that might be it. Maybe we go to one or two conferences or masterminds a year, but the buck kind of stops there.

And you both are just continuing to learn more and more and more. I'm curious on that. Is there anything you hear a lot of educators or different investors in our space telling people and they present it somewhat as common knowledge, but you just feel like this is completely wrong or maybe an old way to go about it? And if so, what do you feel like those are? What do you recommend instead?

Katie: I mean, for me, when I think about a land investing business being successful from like an umbrella perspective, I think not just of systems process and people, but also sales.

So we have hired coaches and I worked one-on-one and with Ajay as well. And that investment, I think think gave us an even stronger backbone. I think that the sales piece is so critical to the success of the company. And it's not just on like your sales calls itself, but like in your follow-up process and how do you integrate that with the technology like Stride that you're using.

I just think that the sales piece is just so, so, so important. And I hear a lot of people talking more about like metrics or process and numbers. But at the end of the day, like how many like follow up calls are you making? What's your follow up cadence? How long are you on the phone with those people? So that like sales piece, I just think is so critical.

And I also think, too, we talk about like, you know, growing the teams themselves. But I think that there is a lack of a conversation around like continuing education with your teams. And how are you not only educating yourself as a business owner, like we're not just spending time on investing in ourselves, all of this knowledge we then are pouring into our employees.

So the training, the coaching, the developing, the leading, I don't think we talk about enough in this space as well when it comes to the people that are supporting your business initiatives.

Seth: Good answer. When you guys think about your long term plan, if there is a plan, like where do you see this going in five or 10 years?

Brian: I would love this to be a lot of inbound marketing, not as much external marketing, not pushing as much out into the land space. I would like land deals to be coming to us. I would like to be more in development, sub-dividing things and just having less projects, but higher gross profit in those projects. That would be something that I would really like to.

And then the monies that we make along the year, invest those into syndication, real estate opportunities and have that pay its dividends along the way, offset taxes and all those kinds of things that go along with all that. Yeah. So less deals to work on higher margin and just more time to have with the family. And that would be where I see this in five to 10 years.

Seth: Yeah. How many hours a week do you both have to work? Is that just a straight 40 hours a week? Or does it, like, bleed into the weekend and the nights? Or what does that look like?

Brian: It bleeds for me a little bit on both sides, especially on disposition, especially on comping big deals. Like we got a larger deal locked up over the weekend on Saturday. So I had to sit down and go through 11 properties, comp all of those individually, and then send the offer out. Katie had to make the call on a Saturday. That's just part of being a business owner.

But I will say ultimately I'm working four to five hours, three or four hours a day, some days, four to five hours, other days. And then it's afforded us the opportunity to walk our kids to school every morning here in Uruguay and pick them up from school and spend time with them in the afternoon that where our team is working the final couple hours of the day.

And we're just looking at our phones on Discord if we need it or anything. So three to five hours is kind of where I work.

Seth: What about you, Katie?

Katie: Yeah, I would say the days where I had some standing calls where I'm supporting other business owners, that's when my days are more time intensive. You know, I might have two to three, a couple of days a week that I'm blocking out some time for, but actually sitting in front of the computer, like driving this business for me at this point is maybe one and a half hours a day or so.

Like, Brian, do you think I'm not giving myself enough time here? I mean, because most of my conversations are on the fly with the team. So I've got my CRM in my hand. I've got access to my team in my hand. And so a lot of it is just answering questions, team coordination, et cetera. So I would say, you know, total probably working 20-ish hours a week right now, fully.

Seth: Do you guys work in the same office or do you like need space? Like in the opposite side of the house or something like that?

Brian: Well, some days we're sitting next to each other, normally in that chair that you can see.

Seth: I see.

Brian: So it is nice to have Katie right next to me. We're brainstorming. Something comes up, take my AirPod out. I got music on. I'm like, hey, this is going on. You know, I can look over at her. I do like working next to her for a little bit of a day. And then she's going to get on a call. And I'm like, hey, it's time to go in a different space.

You know, give me some peace and quiet over here so I can trudge through this comping or specific thing. But we're always, as you say, when I say I'm working three to four or four to five hours a week, Katie working, I mean, a day, Katie two. All that being said, we're always talking about the business, too. Everything that's coming up.

So I can't even quantify the number of conversations we're having about things that we're thinking about doing in the future or movements or pivots we're going to make or hires we're thinking about, or what's the next thing that we want to be doing. So to say that it's, you know, sitting in front of a computer for that amount of time, but it's also on the cell phone and different things and conversations.

Seth: Yeah. Me and my wife are both introverts. And even when we're sitting next to each other with our shoulders touching, we still prefer to send texts to each other rather than just even our boys just talking. That's how we operate.

Well, as we wrap this up, I'm curious if somebody is listening to this, maybe they've just started land investing. Maybe they're thinking about getting into it. Maybe they've been into it for six months or so. Do you have any advice, like any just key lessons or things that you've learned that you would want them to know about, given where you are?

Brian: I think it goes back to a lot of what we spoke about. I think it's, I think the first six to eight months are going to be the tests and the trial of this, does this work for you? You need to see some proof of concept. You need to, you need to learn about the systems and operations.

And if you're starting out, if you can afford a coach or can afford a community of people to help you through that, I think that's a standing kind of concept we've talked about here, too, is just be around other people. Don't put yourself on the island. Learn the business. Listen to consume a lot of information, podcasts, all of that.

And then honestly, if you can hire that coach, I think he's an excellent coach. But all that being said, having that community and having that coach early on or just learning the business through podcasts and all that and just just keep going.

I think that six, eight month period is going to be helpful. You see if two deals go full cycle and then you really kind of understand what this business could be in the future. And then working on that core sales acumen, too, is super important. And so you can kind of fine tune all that in a short amount of time. I think you'll have a great business.

Seth: Awesome. Katie, you got anything to add?

Katie: Yeah. Yeah. I would, I would tell people to be patient and be realistic. I think if someone's going to start a land business to do enough research in regards to like what this could potentially cost you per month. Knowing that it is taking nine months to a year to finally start seeing things come full circle.

And just like any business, this is going to be just a time investment and a financial investment, but in your future. So be patient, but be realistic and just don't give up.

Seth: On that note of being realistic. So I think that's great advice, but a lot of people may not know what realistic means because all they've heard about is like all the highlights and the wins and all stuff. So like any quick pointers on what realistic means, how much money it takes to get started or how hard it is to get deals or any other thoughts on that?

Brian: I think you can bootstrap it and do it pretty lean for a few thousand dollars a month. And I think over that amount of time, I think for a few months, if you bootstrap it, have the conversations, be in the weeds of your business, know everything that's happening, and then maybe make that first hire in the first maybe two to three months.

But give yourself that real time in the business to learn all things that could go right and wrong, and then start maybe thinking about that next person. But I think for a few thousand dollars a month, you could potentially have an opportunity to buy your typical land deal, which is a 2040, buy for 20, sell for 40, buy for 25, sell for 50.

And then you can really reinvest that. What we did was once we got our first deal that made us a little bit more money than the previous, we just reinvested that into more systems. I would say you probably don't need a CRM right off the bat. You can make things work. You can run a really lean business. You can learn all the little nuances about your business.

Then invest in the CRM. Then invest in the next things that are going to help grow your business. So the realistic component is it could be a few thousand dollars a month for multiple months. Let's give it four to five months here to see something be bought and sold full cycle. But you can learn a lot in that time period.

And then from there, you can reinvest those funds and then start growing your business, hire a few team members along the way. So realistically, it's not a super expensive and high dollar business to get started, but it is entrepreneurship. It's not easy.

Seth: I'm sorry, I keep trying to end this, but one last question. Being a power couple in the land business. Katie, if you didn't know Brian, if you weren't married to him, or Brian, if you didn't know Katie, if you guys weren't married, just doing this on your own, do you think you would have succeeded at this? Or would you be where you are now? Or is it basically multiplied your success, having a spouse and a friend and a partner the way you both do?

Katie: I'll start. So I would not be doing land investing if it wasn't for Brian specifically. Land investing was completely off my radar. I was very comfortable in my W-2. I was very successful in that world. I was content with everything.

He really sort of opened my eyes up to a whole nother life opportunity, not just our jobs, but an entire new life opportunity. So I would not be successful in this if it wasn't for Brian, because I just wouldn't be here. And I think, you know, if I had this skill set now, I think I could create a pretty, you know, mean team to compete with Brian.

But there's so many things that he does within our business that it's not my strength. So I truly think that we do complement each other.

Brian: I want you to think about if your couch is very comfortable or not before you answer this.

Katie: OK, I'll tell you, my Uruguayan couch is not very comfortable.

Brian: And I will say, no, there's no chance I would be as successful as I am. I knew that land or real estate investing is something I was good at. I knew enough to be good in the real estate world. But my team and my culture and everything that where we are two years into the business would be totally different.

And that's where I think a lot of solo for newers out there are struggling because they don't have all the pieces that we may have. integration sales my acumen katie's acumen our ability to collaborate together so. That's a great question, because I know where I'm at, it would be, hey, guys, you know, we got to do this today. And the team wouldn't be as strong and prevalent in our business as it would be if it was just me.

So and I would just run it like a like a straight ship and everybody would be probably jumping on and off the whole time. So all that being said, it would be a totally different business today. But I think that, you know, if you are a solopreneur to kind of overcome those things that you maybe you are not good at and kind of put together a unified person like Katie and I have is to get that training and to be around those other people that can give you those information in order to add those components of your business that you may not like to do.

Because certain things energize me and I do those now in the business and certain things energize Katie and she does those. Things that don't, we figure out a VA to do them or an employee of our team to do them, or Katie can take on that responsibility. So we do have a slight advantage where if it doesn't energize me, it's not something I want to be doing in the business.

And we can either offload that or Katie can take on that with someone she enjoys doing.

Seth: Brian and Katie, if people want to connect with you or find out more about you or anything like that. No obligation to share, but is there something you would point them to if they wanted to?

Katie: Yeah, sure. So my email is katie, K-A-T-I-E at patriotplots.com. We're also on Instagram, @patrioplots.

Seth: Okay. Gotcha. I'll include a link to that in the show notes again, retipster.com/241. My Amazon wishlist will be the first link you'll find. Don't miss that one. I'll be sure to put it in bold.

Brian and Katie, again, thank you so much. It was awesome talking with you. Thank you, Mike, for being here to ask even better questions. And all the listeners out there, we'll talk to you again in the next episode.