Seth Williams: Hey, everybody, how's it going? This is Seth Williams. You're listening to the REtipster podcast. Today, I'm talking with Joe McCall. So Joe has been around the real estate investing and education world for a long time. Over the years, his focus has evolved quite a bit. Today, he operates in a few different worlds at once. He's a land investor, an educator, and a very experienced internet marketer. That combination gives him an interesting perspective because he's not just thinking about how to do deals. He's also thinking about how to teach the business, communicate it clearly, and how to help people understand whether it's a good fit for them. So today I want to talk with Joe about what the land business really looks like right now, how it's changed, how Joe's business has changed. It's going to be a great talk. Joe, welcome to the show. How are you doing?

Joe McCall: Seth, it really is an honor to be on your show. I'm doing great. Thank you.

Seth Williams: Yeah, thanks for being here. We were actually just talking before we hit record about dealing with internet haters, whether this is coming from...

Joe McCall: What a great topic.

Seth Williams: Yeah, just to start on a light note.

Joe McCall: Let's talk about the haters. Yeah. Tell me your.

Seth Williams: Experience with internet haters.

Joe McCall: You know, what's funny is when I was learning to do deals, one of my coaches told me, if you've not made somebody mad by 12 o'clock, you're not making enough offers. And that's always stuck with me. Like, and that's kind of true. It sucks to have haters, but sometimes it tells you you're doing something right. Sometimes it also tells you, Hey, you deserve it.

Seth Williams: Like, and how can you tell the difference between those two? Like, how do you know it's happening? because you're doing something right versus wrong?

Joe McCall: That's a great question. I think it depends a lot on humility. I try to be humble. I'm always trying to do the right thing. I really do sincerely try every day not to lie or exaggerate because I teach, I do a lot of podcasts and videos and I do webinars and I do sales presentations. I can't say I never lie, but I never intentionally lie, lie about something like intentionally lie about how many deals I'm currently doing or how many deals I did in the past or things like that. So sometimes though, like it's important when you put yourself out there and this is applicable to everybody listening to this, when you put yourself out there, whether you're doing just deals or whether you're doing like some teaching and deals or whether you're a hundred percent teaching, when you put yourself out there, you put a target on your back and haters are going to hate. That's what they're good at. And sometimes hurt people hurt people. You've heard that saying too, right? So sometimes you got to take the hate that you're getting with a little grain of salt and a little sympathy to understand, you know what, maybe they're not in the right spot right now. Maybe they're mentally unstable. I don't know. Most people are not like that.

Joe McCall: But yeah, when you put yourself out there, when you're making a lot of offers, let's say you're doing real estate houses or you're doing land, when you make a lot of offers, you're doing a lot of marketing, you're sending a lot of mail, you're doing the cold calling, you're doing the text blasting, whatever it is, you're going to make people mad. And sometimes you got to have a thick skin in this business and just get used to it because it means maybe you're doing something right. So, you know, if you're in the real estate business or in the education business, the software business, you're going to make people mad. And if you've not made somebody mad by 12 o'clock every day, maybe you're not doing enough marketing. Maybe you're not making enough offers. Maybe you're not putting yourself out there enough. God's given us all messages to share with the world. And most perfect guy who has ever lived got a ton of hate, So maybe what's the big deal? Why am I whining and complaining about it, Seth? Maybe I just need to shut up.

Seth Williams: You're talking about how people hated Jesus, I'm assuming, is who you're referring to? When I think about the reasons people, and not everybody hated him, but certainly certain people did because there was like power struggles going on and political issues and all this stuff, I can kind of see human fallenness and sin interwoven into why that hate existed there. When I think about reasons people might hate me, I'm trying to think of the different context of that. So there's a context of like sending a low offer. Maybe somebody is offended that I look at their property value is lower than they do. There's a situation where like maybe I say something in a YouTube video that they disagree with. It is weird, though, how certain I think maybe it's human insecurities come out of the woodwork when somebody responds that way to just like a simple statement you're saying. Like, I'm not insulting you. I didn't call you a name. I'm just putting information out there. Why would that hate be there exactly? Where's that coming from?

Joe McCall: Well, first of all, let me say, I'm not comparing myself to Jesus Christ. Like, I'm like, that's, maybe it's, I shouldn't have even brought that up. But like, when you make offers to sellers, you could be the nicest guy in the world and like be polite on the phone. You're talking to them and they want $5 trillion for their property. And you think it's really only worth $10,000. They're going to be upset no matter what offer you make would to them would be. So when I'm coaching people in land, that's something that, that's one of the first things I try to teach people and help people with is like, you're going to get people angry at you because you're sending them a postcard and they're going to, like, I warn people in advance about all of the angry voicemails you're going to get. My favorite marketing is direct mail. I like to send people a postcard or a letter, a neutral letter. And so I know a lot of people send blind offers. If you've sent at least a thousand letters or postcards, I guarantee you're going to get at least one or two angry voicemails. And you've got to be prepared for it and ready for it because people are just flying off the handle for no reason. You see it every day out on the road. I'm just hoping that I don't turn into that, you know, like what can you and I do? What can people listening to this podcast do to be in the right mindset to just like water off the ducks back? You know, we can't let it affect us because it can ruin your day. It can ruin your relationships.

Joe McCall: So I had an angry comment to one of my videos that I did the other day where I was talking about how I'm thankful for gurus. I'm thankful for the gurus that taught real estate to me back when I started studying real estate in 2006 and 2007. A lot of those guys aren't around anymore. Some of them are like, I bought the programs. They weren't any good, but I did always learn something out of them, like one or two or three nuggets. Some of them, I got more nuggets than others, right? But I was mentioning this on the podcast. Like I'm thankful for the gurus that were willing to put themselves out there and get and put the target on their back because they taught me something that I started taking and then implementing. But I was able to quit my job in 2009 because...

Joe McCall: From wholesaling houses. When the market in the economy, if you remember back then was in a free fall, I was able to, I was making more money doing houses. I was wholesaling houses at the time than I was. I was doing that part-time. I was making more money doing that part-time than I was in my full-time job as an engineer. And so I was making probably eight or nine grand a month on average wholesaling houses because I learned something from these gurus that were teaching it. So I was just mentioning, I'm thankful for the gurus who taught me that stuff. And then you could go all the way back. Like there was a guru who taught that guru, who taught that guru, who taught that guru, who finally taught me, you know, this things like, how about this? We're not in the real estate investing business. We're in the marketing business. That's a really important thing. I learned that from a guru. The number one rule in real estate is not location, location, location. It's make offers, make offers, make offers. I learned that from a guru, right? Your speed to income is directly proportional, to the number of offers that you make. I learned that from a guru. I was like, wow. These kinds of principles that, people hear me talk about on my YouTube videos or my podcasts, not all of it I make up. I learned that from other people who were before me, who taught me these things. And I know how much of a difference it made in my business. Now I'm teaching these same principles to new people, and I can see the difference it's making in their businesses.

Joe McCall: And so when you put yourself out there, you're going to get haters, you know, I hope I'm not talking too much about, and I don't know if this is what you wanted to talk about, Seth.

Seth Williams: Well, so on the haters thing, how do you know when criticism is something you ought to be paying attention to versus ignoring? Like, what is the switch that flicks in your head? I was like, oh, maybe I ought to change something versus, ah, who cares? It's just a hater. Like, how do you differentiate that?

Joe McCall: Are you married?

Seth Williams: I am.

Joe McCall: Okay. It's a good thing that we are married in a certain sense that we have a spouse. Who knows us better than anybody who can tell us, first of all, we are our own worst critic. Sometimes when I get hate though, I run it by my wife and ask her, what do you think of this? Does this make any sense to you? But I pay attention to all of the criticism. I really do. I try to pay attention to it. There may be something that I do need to improve. And sometimes it's just my tone maybe needs to be adjusted. Maybe I'm like condescending sometimes too much. And it's making people feel, threatened or, you know, so I need to learn to be nicer and not so cocky and arrogant when I'm talking. So I do listen to all of the criticism as much as I can, but most of the time I try not to let it affect me. It's just coming from somebody who doesn't understand who's been hurt before, and is lashing out because of the hurt that they've had before.

Seth Williams: So the mechanism you use to decide whether to not just listen to it, but actually try to change yourself in response to the criticism is based on how well they know you. Is that what it is? Or is it if they make a really good point and you're like, oh, I haven't thought of that. Maybe you're right. Even though you don't know me, it's still a good point. Like, how do you turn it on versus turn it off?

Joe McCall: I guess it depends on the relationship they have with you. Like one of my employees complained to another person recently about me because of how I am being a little vulnerable here. When I'm sending a text or a message in Slack with my team, I'm busy. I got a thousand things going on. And if I'm not careful with my tone, it can come across as like really offensive. And so that's something I'm working on. And so I had, I was a little irritated about 500 things and somebody on my team messaged something, and I was criticizing it. I came across as way more angry than I was. I was coming across as like a real jerk on the message and I should have like toned it down or maybe added a smiley face in the message. Cause so like for me, I'm learning to, that was somebody on my team. So obviously I'm going to pay more attention. Some YouTube comments, Facebook comments. Yeah, I'm not going to spend as much time on that, but I am going to try to listen to it. And your reputation is the most important thing you have, pretty much, right? Like your integrity, your reputation. And so I do take it very seriously. And I want to know if I'm doing something wrong.

Seth Williams: Do you see yourself as a guru?

Joe McCall: Yeah, that's a great question. You're so good at this, Seth. Yeah, I think I do. I kind of wished I wasn't, but I do, yes.

Seth Williams: Consider myself. Okay, so why do you wish you weren't? I'm curious.

Joe McCall: Well, because of the negative connotation around it, exactly like what we're talking about. So I like to consider, like when people ask me, what do you do? And I'll just be open and honest. Probably 90% of my revenue that I generate, and I make a lot of money, 90% comes from software services, coaching, education, consulting, that kind of stuff. Okay. I still do deals. It's just not as much as it used to be. I still do deals though. And anymore, I am investing in my students' deals and I'm buying deals to buy and hold. I'm not actively doing the marketing like I used to anymore. I wish I could. I just don't have the time. I don't have the bandwidth to do it all. So I do make more money in the education and services space, but I'm not ashamed of that either. And so in that sense, yes, I'm a guru.

Joe McCall: But I feel like I'm doing enough. I am doing some good things. I am helping a lot of people. I know I'm impacting a lot of lives and I'm encouraging things. Now, if I have to sell to do that, I guess I, I do that. So am I a guru? Yeah. There's, I think there's also important distinctions to Seth. Like there's really dumb. I don't want to say evil. There are really bad gurus out there. Okay. I've spent tens of thousands of dollars. I've wasted tens of thousands of dollars on bad gurus. So I know what that's like. And so when I'm trying to do what I'm doing here with my education and my services and like our done for you stuff and our software and our coaching that we sell, I want to be one of the good guys. I want to be one of the good gurus. So like, you know, one of the things that I do that's different that I think most other gurus do is I do what's called a business completion challenge. And I refund everybody their money. If they go through my program and they try it, whether they do a deal or not, I'll refund their money. So I call it my business completion challenge.

Joe McCall: And this is something I try to do that just makes me stand in the good guru category. So like if they go through dirt flippers and they watch all the modules and they participate in the coaching calls and they make at least 100 offers in six months, I'll refund all their money, whether they do a deal or not. And I do that for a couple of reasons. Number one, that's one of the ways I do deals. I know if they go and do what I teach, they'll get some deals. They'll bring them to me. I'll either lend on them, partner with them on them, or hopefully buy them and hold them for myself. And number two, I want to invest in people who take massive action. And so I know that if they go through this, they'll be a raving fan, a customer for life. They might sign up for something else I sell in the future. They might So they'll tell other people about me. So I get great testimonials. And that way too, like when I do get the haters, I'll be like, listen, really? Like, all you got to do is go through my thing and do all of the stuff. Even if you don't do a deal, I'll refund your money. Go look at my website and you'll see hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people holding refund checks there. So I'm trying to be the good guru by doing that.

Seth Williams: Yeah. Do they have to like verify that they made these hundred offers or something? Like what hoops do they have to jump through to get the refund?

Joe McCall: They have to verify it. So I sell FreedomSoft, which is my software that I sell as an affiliate. I get paid very well commissions from the owner of FreedomSoft, but it's a software that I use every day. I've been using it for years and years and years. I love it. I use it. And I recommend people to get it. It ranges from $197 a month to $297 a month. And there's add-ons and things like that you can get, but it does everything. It gives you the list. It does your mail. Okay. So I actually even offer it. I reimburse people who get into Dirt Flippers. I reimburse them for FreedomSoft, but it is a requirement. Inside of FreedomSoft, they have to show us that they made the offers in FreedomSoft. So that's one way we verify it. So my team will also like, sometimes they have to send us screenshots. Sometimes they actually send us in a Google Drive folder or a Dropbox folder, all the offers. And the offers that I require are in response to your marketing. So not blind offers. Anybody can send a hundred blind offers in like five minutes, but they need to be offers that they talk to somebody, they sent some mail, they raised their hand and said, yeah, I'll sell my property, make an offer. If they can make a hundred offers in six months and show me that they've done the work and they've gone through the program and I want to make sure they're like watching my videos and they're participating in the Facebook group and they're participating in the weekly calls that we do. We do calls every day.

Joe McCall: So they're at least participating in some of those calls. Yeah, I'll refund. But Seth, only 5% of people actually will do that. At least we will request a refund. I know a lot of people actually do it and they're like.

Joe McCall: I don't want to ask for a refund because I already got so much more value. They are, they did some deals. They're, they're making 10, 20 grand, you know, like, so it's just, so some people don't ask for the refund. I get it. But so that's, I'm trying to, I'm trying to be different than the bad gurus by doing that. And, uh, anytime we do have, well, anyway, I can talk on and on about this.

Seth Williams: You've mentioned this idea of a bad guru a few times in your mind. What makes somebody a bad guru? Like what qualifies them to sit in that camp versus like, oh, this is one of the good guys. How do you differentiate that?

Joe McCall: So I'll tell you my first coaching program that I signed up, this is a bad guru, but I also, some of it was my fault. And even though it was a bad guru, I should have done better with it. So it was one of those high pressure sales calls on the phone. You know, you fill out an application, they get on the phone, you talk to some, a junior person who then tease you up and set you up for the closer, you know? And when it came to, yeah, this is what my goals are. This is where I am now. This is where I want to be. You know, they walked me through this elaborate sales process of kind of what are your goals? Okay, well, we can help you achieve those goals. Well, when it came time to how much the program cost, it was a discussion. All of a sudden it became into a discussion of, well, how much do you have available on your credit cards? And so at the time, this was probably...

Joe McCall: 2008, maybe 2007, I had $13,000 available across three different credit cards. And guess what? That was the cost of the coaching program. And so, however, I'm looking back, I'm like, how did I get sucked into that? Like they found out what, and they said, well, okay, well, we can help you for 13 grand. So what I didn't appreciate was being sold something that just happened to be at that price based because of that's what I had on my credit card available balances. Now, then when I joined the program, the real guru that sold it to me, you could talk to him maybe once a month on a large group call with a couple hundred other people. I didn't like that because I didn't, that wasn't sold to me at the beginning of it. I thought I would have, be able to ask him more questions, but then they gave me a ton of stuff. Okay and i remember looking at it thinking oh man this is so elementary i could have gotten this for free on a book in a book you know at the time i would go to barnes and noble on the weekends and just read a ton of real estate books and i was like this exact.

Seth Williams: Same thing i'm with

Joe McCall: You because i could i didn't want to pay the money to buy the books but i would spend 13 grand on a coaching program whatever i'd like i would read all these books and i would get discouraged because this course that i bought there's it hasn't said anything that's different than what's in these books. But what I was buying though, was there was a small, they put me in a small accountability group.

Joe McCall: And every week we had a call with four or five other people and the coach find out later is just a coach that was in some kind of call center in Salt Lake City, Utah, somewhere with a big manual, that every week there was a lesson. They taught from the lesson and then they asked questions and they gave everybody homework. OK, so here's my point. At the end of that six months, by the way, it was done like the program's done. You couldn't get on any of the calls anymore. There was no more support after that. And so I was frustrated with that. But looking back, I still have the notebook over here that they sent me and all the books going through it. Yeah. It was elementary, very simple, basic stuff, but I never did anything they told me to do. Like, and if I would have, I probably would have done a deal, but you know what they told me to do? You know, build your buyer's list. Okay. So I did that. I built my buyer's list, but I don't, they said, okay, now call five realtors was one of the homeworks, call five realtors and ask them if they have any deals, tell them me what you're looking for. I didn't do that. The next week, maybe the homework was call five FSBOs for sale by owners and just talk to the owners and ask them if they would, you know, are they negotiable on their price? Ask them if they would do some kind of creative financing or something. I didn't do that. The homework on like, okay, go find a property on the MLS that needs a lot of work, that needs updating, that's been on the market for over, you know, 30, 60 days and make an offer. Just send them an offer, call the realtor and say, Hey, I can offer you this.

Joe McCall: I didn't do any of that. So looking at that, whose fault was it? Really? This is why I'm so passionate about this, Seth. Whose fault was it that I did not make my money back in that program? Was it because it was a bad program or was it because I didn't do what they told me to do because I was afraid? Yeah. And I think it was mainly, maybe it was 40% their fault, but it was 60% mine. I, when I decided to take ownership of that, that's when my, that's when it turned around for me.

Seth Williams: When I started making blog posts and videos and stuff years ago, I don't think anybody ever saw me as a guru. I don't think anybody ever like started trying to paint that picture of me until I had a course. Like the moment that happened, it's like, oh, okay. Things have changed now. This is totally different. Like I didn't coach people. I didn't do one-on-one mentoring. I didn't do any of that stuff. I just had a marketable product of information. It's like, boom, there you go. Rubber stamp guru. It just kind of bugs me. I know what it's like. You know, you just put a bunch of money into something and the person didn't really give you that much helpful information or just kind of that sleazy feel to it. And it's like, I don't want to be painted with those brushstrokes. I don't know how much control we really ultimately have over that other than just, I'm going to do what I think I can to help the world. And if people don't like it, I can't control your opinions. I can control what I do. And hopefully you won't have that opinion of me, but like, ultimately you got to decide for yourself what you think of me.

Joe McCall: It's interesting, Seth, is when I, when somebody wants to hire me to coach them or something, and if I'm talking to them on the phone and they complain about another guru, I will not work with them. And it's not that I'm not disagreeing with them, but people need to take responsibility for their own actions. And if you start blaming other people for your problems, that's a sure sign that the issue is probably with you. And you know what? If you're complaining about them, you're probably going to complain about me as well because nobody's perfect. But I bet you a glass of iced tea. That that guru that you don't like, that you're blaming all your problems on, if you would have just done what he or she said to do, you probably wouldn't be in the same situation that you are right now. So in my coaching, I try to be all about data, not drama. And I want to know when I'm coaching somebody, how many offers have you made in the last week? Because that's all that matters. If you want to make money in real estate, it all comes down to that one thing.

Joe McCall: I always say there's two important numbers. The two most important numbers in your real estate business are how many offers have you made in the last week and how many offers have you made in the last month? That is like, that's it. And so when I'm coaching people, if they're not making offers, it's pretty easy to pinpoint what the problem is. Why aren't you making offers? And so then you can steer through that. But I guarantee you, Seth, I've seen your stuff. You have some of the best education out there in the real estate investing space for land and for houses. The stuff you put out there is such high quality. anybody who complains about what you do or what you sell is a complete idiot. I mean, maybe that's offensive. I shouldn't say that. But like the stuff you put out, man, for free, that's another, I think another way to measure a good coach from a bad coach is how much like for people who can't afford what you sell, do you have good enough free information that they could actually take, get some value from that? Like your stuff on YouTube, your blog posts, the stuff that you give away for free, that's gold. Like people don't really actually need to sign up for your coaching or your course to learn how to do real estate. There's enough free stuff that's out there in your, on your channel in AI on YouTube and all over the place.

Seth Williams: So totally appreciate that.

Joe McCall: Well, let me, can I say one more thing too about this? Cause I want to, I think this is important to understand. Bill Belichick, probably one of the best football coaches that ever, ever coached the game. Andy Reed, Kansas city chiefs. Amazing coach. Sean McVay, who's coached the Rams, I think, to one or two Super Bowls or whatever. How much football do those guys play today? They don't play any football today. Why? Maybe they did in the past. They've moved past that. They're a better coach than they are a player. You know, I think it's Sean McVay or some, there's some other NFL coach who'd never even played in the NFL. There are really good coaches out there. So sometimes like some people may complain that, oh, you're, you're an evil guru because you're not doing the business, today that you, that you used to do. So they say that there's more money in teaching or whatever.

Joe McCall: I would say there's more hassle than in teaching than there is in doing deals. So it's like some people are better coaches than they are operators. And I think I fall into that category. I'm a better coach. I'm a better educator than I am with actually operating a real estate investment. Now I've done hundreds of deals. How many deals am I doing today? I do one deal on my own for my own marketing every couple, three months, maybe, but I'm investing in a lot of other people's deals. I'm putting my money into their deals. I'm partnering with them on their deals.

Joe McCall: I'm lending out of my self-directed IRA and now I'm starting to buy and hold land deals. So I'm still involved in the business, right? But I'm not sending out the postcards and taking the seller calls anymore. But I'm also not pretending that I am. And I've seen this, and this is annoying, Seth. There's people out there in ads that you see, they're advertising this stuff and they're saying that they're doing hundreds of deals all the time. But if you really dig underneath them and you dig in and you see what's really going on, complete BS. They're not, they might show you a bank statement and everything's blacked out, but that bank statement is, it's the amount of incoming revenue, not the outgoing stuff. So example, they sell a deal for 50 grand. They'll show 50 grand as their profit. No, but they paid 40 grand for the deal and they spent three grand on marketing. But all you see is the $50,000. Does that make sense? So I see a lot of that out there. And maybe that is some of the reasons why the whole guru thing gets a bad name because you see these guys, flashing fake checks in Ferraris that are leased in these fancy houses that they're just renting or an Airbnb. And that stuff will catch up to you.

Seth Williams: Where do you think the line is? Like at what point can an educator become too disconnected from the actual business to teach it responsibly? I hear what you're saying about like the football coach thing. I've thought a similar thing about like my accounting professors in college. They're not active CPAs doing accounting for people. And yet I can pay them 50 grand a year to learn from them and get my college degree, which still doesn't guarantee me a job. It's the same kind of thing. It's like they're not actively doing what they're teaching. They're just teaching me how to do it from what they know. I'm just one like, is there a point at which like, no, the credibility aspect does matter. You do need to be doing this all of the time versus like, well, I did a lot of deals five years ago. So I know what to tell you based on that, because like the market can change. Like I know the land market, especially today, like it is pretty different from how it was. Five years ago. So like, does that change things at all?

Joe McCall: What do you think? Yes, I think it does. You need to understand what's working today. But I would argue that this business is 80% mindset and 20% tactics. I wish it was 80% tactics because the mindset stuff, I don't have a problem with. I know we can do this. I know this business works. Whenever I have taught the tactics, because I'm good with software and the tactics and systems and, you know, But when I've taught just the tactics, I've had way less success with my students and clients by teaching the tactics. When I teach the mindset, I have way more success. Because our number one job as coaches is to get people to believe that they can do it. The tactics are easy. It is really easy. It's maybe 10% tactics and 90% mindset.

Seth Williams: You know, I always kind of struggle with that because I'm a big, I guess, tactics person. And I think the reason I am is because I do hear a lot of the mindset stuff from a lot of the teachers out there. And it's almost like missing the tactic part of it. I get the mindset. I can do it, whatever. But like, how do I actually do it? The reason I kind of struggle with this right now is because I know people who have done very, very well in the land business historically. Historically and as of like right now they're about to go out of business because the tactics that they are doing right now don't work anymore the blind offer strategy or evaluating markets just lots of things about the playbook that worked five years ago don't work that well anymore it's not that it can't work at all it means that you have to change and figure out how to adjust with the times so like i get the mindset piece but like there is a place for understanding the real tactics that work right now too. And people who like, they did get it and it's not serving them anymore because it changed. How do we make sure that part is right for everybody? And they are actually plowing forward with both the correct mindset and the correct tactics. Like I don't want to take for granted that tactics are going to work because they might not if it's outdated information.

Joe McCall: That's so good. Like that's why masterminds are so important. And we were at one recently a year ago or so mass when you can hang out and network with other like-minded people in masterminds. And I go to maybe every year I go to four or five of them. Anybody, everybody listening to this, whenever Seth advertises one of these masterminds, you need to sign up and go. Because you're going to start hanging out with other people and you're going to start learning what's working and what's not. I started a little local mastermind in St. Louis, I don't know, 10 years ago. And I personally invited all of the active wholesalers that were doing deals. And maybe 35, 40% of them responded. And you know what we did when we got together? We got together once a month, talked for a couple hours over lunch. And maybe at any one time, I did this for about a year and a half, two years. There was maybe at the most 12 people there, active wholesalers. You know what we all shared? what's working today. And it was crazy when you were at work, like some guy would have a deal, but no buyers. Some guy would have a buyer looking for a deals. Some people would have money that they were wanting to lend. Somebody was wanting to buy multifamily. Somebody was wanting to buy single families. Somebody was wanting to buy mobile homes. And we were actually partnering and doing deals together, talking about, well, this marketing tactic is working really well right now. This one is not. And I see things coming in waves. You know, what used to worked five years ago, maybe it doesn't work today, but pay attention because it might start working again later on. And the market goes through these cycles.

Joe McCall: There's a ton of people trying to compete for these deals and then it gets hard and then a lot of them leave. And then guess what? It becomes easy again. So we go through these cycles. That's why it's so important to stay plugged in to podcasts like yours, to plug into these masterminds. And if you can't afford to go to them, then start your own. And there's so many Facebook groups out there. So staying educated. And that's one of the reasons why Seth, I love being a coach because I get to hear from my clients what's working today. I learned so many more things from them. That I can now learn, apply, and go teach to other people as well. Being involved in the community and sharing just as much as you're taking is really important. Does that make sense?

Seth Williams: For sure. Yeah, I would totally agree on the mastermind thing. When I look back at every key aha moment or discovery or game-changing idea that I ever came across, really, most of that came from mastermind groups or even just like going to a conference, you're sharing a ride to some place with two or three other people, and you're just talking and stuff just comes out and you're like, oh, that's how you do that. Oh, right. It's just amazing how much can come out of that. But you know, you don't get the benefit of that unless you go to this stuff and you're willing to get out of your office and do that kind of thing.

Joe McCall: Yeah. A hundred percent. And sometimes you got to pay to play. You got to pay a little bit of money to get into those rooms, but it's worth it. I spend a lot of money on coaching and masterminds still myself to this day. So I'm putting my money where my mouth is. Like I'm not telling people to sign up for my thing and I'm not signing up for somebody else's thing. Like I am a firm believer in education and masterminding and networking and seeing what are other people doing in other industries? You know, as land investors, we need to be look at what are people in the housing industry doing? Like, how are they doing their marketing for houses? You know, what can we learn from? Like you can learn a ton of things from realtors, believe it or not. You can learn a ton of things from them, like on how to do sales presentations and how to how to sell because they practice that so much with their listing presentations. You know, like you can learn things from household sailors on on how to talk to a seller and negotiate with them. And so it's important to kind of stay in those circles.

Seth Williams: You know, what parts of the land business do you think are less true today than they were several years ago? Like, what do you think is way harder or maybe even easier about it?

Joe McCall: That's a good question. I am seeing a higher response rate on our direct mail, mine and our students.

Seth Williams: And this is like neutral letter postcards when you say that?

Joe McCall: I'm sending, yeah, neutral postcards, neutral, ugly postcards, no logos, no color, no fancy graphics, no QR codes.

Seth Williams: Are you telling them to just call you or email you or submit a form? Or like, what action are you telling them to do?

Joe McCall: My postcards are just call this 24 hour recorded voicemail. And sometimes the postcard says, Hey, it's important that I talk to you about your two acre lot in city County, call this 24 hour recorded voicemail. That's it. And so then they call the voicemail. The voicemail is like 45 seconds long. It just says, Hey, you know, we're land investors. We buy land. If you're tired of fake offers, if you want to sell your property fast for cash, leave your name and number and the reference ID on that postcard we sent you, and we will send you an offer. I find that works really well. It's always worked well for me because I don't want to spend all this time in advance trying to price markets. Just give me a big old fat list. I'll send out a bunch of postcards. You know, I'll send a little bit every week, but I want to send a ton of postcards, get a bunch of inbound leads. I want to talk to them on the phone. Tell me about your property. Sounds like a nice property. Why do you want to sell it? You know, I'm probably not your buyer. You should probably list it with a realtor.

Joe McCall: So what's more important to you? Do you want to sell it fast or do you want to get the highest price possible? So what do you want to get for it? Like I'm asking these, I'm asking them questions. Why do they want to sell this? What is it that they need? What's their end goal? How quickly do they want to sell it? And so many times when I send a seller an offer, I'm also sending them the names of three or four realtors that have sold properties in that area in the past six to 12 months. So they can make a decision. So anyway, what I'm seeing is working today is direct mail has always worked. I think it always will work. And I'm seeing response rates go up because there's less competition for land. Now, in some of these markets, there's still a lot of competition, but still there's not as much as there was a year ago.

Seth Williams: When you say that, you're talking specifically about direct mail competition or like all investors collectively?

Joe McCall: I would say there's, well, there's definitely less investors now chasing land deals than there was a year ago. I don't have any stats to prove that, but I, what I'm seeing in terms of like higher response rates for direct mail, but you know what I'm seeing also is fewer people answering their phones, talking to sellers, right? We're always trying to outsource everything to AI or making them scan a QR code and put their information into a website, or we send blind offers and we try to make these sellers jump through all these hoops. So we don't have to talk to anybody.

Joe McCall: If we could just get really good at those fundamental things, you can do a lot of deals. For example, send direct mail consistently. Every day be marketing. Send something, okay? Number two, answer the phones when people talk, call you. Talk to them. Call them back. Talk to them. Even if it's just three to five minutes, that's all it needs to be. Just build a little rapport. Number three, send every seller you talk to an offer. This has always worked since I got started in real estate in 2006 when I started learning this. Send every seller an offer. Every person that calls me, even if it's a hangup, I call them back. If they text me their reference ID number, even if they don't answer the phone, I'm sending them an offer. Even if they tell me they want $2 trillion for their property, that's a quarter acre lot that's landlocked in a swamp. I'm going to send them an offer anyway. And then number three or number four, whatever that is, I'm going to follow up every 30 days. I'm going to send them another offer. I'm going to send them another postcard and I'm going to text them. I'm going to email them, maybe do a ringless voicemail. I'm going to follow up with every person. So if you just do those three or four things, that will always work no matter what market you're in, whatever, because guess what? Nobody else is doing that. Those are just the fundamentals. And if you're good at the fundamentals, I wrote a book one time called Brilliant at the Basics. And if you can just be brilliant at the basic things, you're going to do really well in this business.

Seth Williams: You said send every seller an offer. You mean like even the properties that are bad that you know you don't want, like send them an offer anyway?

Joe McCall: Well, it depends. But yeah, sometimes I'll still send them an offer even if it's for a hundred bucks, 500 bucks.

Seth Williams: Well, what if you don't want it though? What if it's literally a worth, what if it's a worthless property? You still want to do that? Or is there any disqualifier?

Joe McCall: There are some properties I would not make an offer. Sometimes they're called cigarette lots that's super skinny right next to an interstate. Okay, I probably won't make an offer on that. But okay, maybe you should. Maybe make them an offer for 500 bucks with six months to close. You never know. You might be able to sell it to a neighbor. You might be able to sell it to somebody who wants to put a billboard on it. And remember, if you make the offer, you don't have to close on it. If two months later, the market tells you, nope, there's zero demand for this thing, then you can go back and renegotiate or just cancel the contract. So when I'm making my offers, I try to get 60 to 90 days for due diligence. It's blown me away, Seth. I've sold properties that I didn't think nobody would ever want, but I got it under contract at such a conservative price and I sold it cheaper than anything else out there. I can sell them fast. And sometimes when you offer seller financing, you might buy it for a thousand bucks, sell it for 5,000 bucks on owner financing, 50 bucks a month for five years.

Seth Williams: It kind of seems like there's like... And I can only speak to my own experience on this, but there's probably like a time and a place to follow that. Like I know when I was just getting started, I didn't have much money. And that's actually is basically what I did was I sent offers on everything. And within that first six to 12 months, I found out pretty quick, like, no, you actually don't want to send offers on this. Like, even if you make like 50 bucks, like it's just not worth the mental headspace. It's going to clutter up. So you kind of figure out like what to disqualify before you actually do that.

Joe McCall: This is why I like direct mail so much. Because we get to choose what properties we're going to make offers to. We can pull a list of five plus acres that's not landlocked, that's only 25% or less wetlands or floodplains, that has at least 150 feet of road frontage, that's in these zip codes from owners that don't live in the area, that they've owned it for at least five years. You can get a really good list of really good properties. So the chances are there's going to be very, very few that you're just going to say no. So in general, my rule of thumb is, and anybody that's listened to me and followed this rule has done deals. You make an offer to every seller who raises their hand, send an offer to every seller and follow up with them every 30 days. My coaching business partner and I, Gavin, we looked back over the previous 12 months. We did this a few years ago. We did 58 deals that year. And of those 58 deals, only four came from the first conversation with that seller.

Joe McCall: 54 came from follow-up. On average, seven to eight touches over two to three months. If we would not have done any follow-up, we would have only done four deals that year. Some of the follow-up was a few weeks. Some of it was over a year. But 54 deals came from the follow-up. And so this is why people struggle, I think, is they're just not consistent with these simple basic things. Talk to people. Just talk to five people a day. Send every person you talk to an offer and follow up with every single one of them Until they sell the property or they die or you die like always always always follow up.

Seth Williams: You were talking about the importance of answering the phone and not making people jump through hoops If you're making people talk to a voicemail greeting and leave a voicemail Isn't that kind of making them jump through hoops and then also not answering the phone because you're making them go to voicemail

Joe McCall: The reason I do that 24-hour recorded voicemail thing is because it does make you get more calls because they, when they call that number, they know nobody's going to answer it. So they're, they're curious. They're calling that number to listen to the voicemail. Well, I'm going to call them back right away. In fact, the system I use will send them a text. Hey, thanks for calling. What's the reference ID on that postcard we sent you? It sends them a text immediately right away. And so they'll respond. Sometimes they respond to that text and give us a reference ID. Sometimes they leave a voicemail with the reference ID. Other times they just hang up. Well, I'm going to call them back as soon as I can. And so I like the voicemail, even though it's a hoop, but it just gets more calls.

Seth Williams: How many people do you think you lose because they just don't want to leave a voicemail?

Joe McCall: They hang up the phone. So I'll call them back. You know, I had a client once. He was afraid to talk to people. And so I was helping them with this. And everybody has that fear. I mean, you look at this phone and it feels like a, you know, a 50 pound cactus. He's like, I don't want to talk to anybody. So this guy had, we did the marketing for him. So we have a done for you marketing service. He had like 80 or 90 leads that he thought were dead because they didn't leave a voicemail. And I was talking to him, I was like, well, why haven't you called these guys? He said, well, they obviously don't want to sell their property because they would have left me a voicemail. So I said, wrong answer. I said, let's just, I'll show you how easy it is. Let's go through and call them. Now, some of these were like months and months old. The first one I called, it was about a lead that was like three months old. He didn't have the reference ID anymore. He didn't have his postcard anymore because it's been three months. I called him and said, Hey, my name is Joe. You probably don't remember me. You called me a little while ago about some land that you wanted to sell. So do you still own that land? Are you looking, do you have any land you want to sell? He's like, well, as a matter of fact, I do. He said, it's been on the market now for six months. I'm just frustrated with this thing, tired of waiting. The realtor's not selling it. I just want to get rid of it. And so I pulled it up.

Joe McCall: He was able to give me his last name on the owner records. I was able to look it up and find the property by his last name in that county and whatever. And I found the property and I was just talking to him for like five minutes, trying to find out why did he want to sell it? Why didn't the realtor sell it? Was it overpriced? What's the least you'd take for it? And he, I don't remember the exact details, but my point is this was a dead lead that was months old. He didn't leave a voicemail. I just called the guy, talked to him. It was nice. And five minutes later, I have his name and phone number and email. I have his mailing address. And so I said to my client at the time, send him an offer right now and follow up every 30 days. Because a lot of times, no means not yet. Great book called Go for No. I recommend everybody read that, but like send the offers. And I always like to send the offers in writing, in the mail, because emails get lost. They go to spam. Text messages get lost. They don't go through, whatever. So send the offer in writing.

Seth Williams: You said to send offers to people in the mail, like the spam is? Okay. You think that's better than like sending it by email and then calling them to make sure that they got it?

Joe McCall: I do all of the above. Here's the reason why. because sometimes sellers say, yeah, just send me an offer just to get you off the phone. They're like, yeah, that's like, send me an offer. I'll review it. And so a lot of times then I'll email it to them or I'll do digital signature and they just like ghost me. It happens all the time. So when you send it in the mail, it's just like, you just never know this. When you're calling sellers or talking to them, they might be in the middle of a hundred other things. You know, their kids crying in the background, they've got dinner on the stove, you know, there's always stuff going on. And so like when you send an email, if you would see my email inbox, it's insane. Like within seconds, your email was on page one will be in page two. And so it's like, I don't go through all those. I miss the emails. But something that gets in writing in the mail, everybody, believe it or not, still opens their mail. Like you look at an email's 20% open rates, direct mail, 80% open rates. They may open it over the trash can, but they're opening and looking at it. And so I like when we send offers, when I was doing deals with my boys, I would make them print the offer letter from our home printer and then handwrite on the envelope their address and put a real stamp on it. It's because now when you do your follow-up, they're going to remember more the offer you sent in the mail than the offer you sent in an email. They're not going to remember that email. So when I'm calling them to follow up, it's like, hey, I'm following up with that offer I sent you in the mail.

Joe McCall: You probably don't remember. Okay. But I tell all my clients, listen, I want you to follow up every 30 days with every seller you get. Everybody you've sent an offer, do follow up. I want to call them and I want to ask that seller in six months, Hey, do you know who Susie is? And they better tell me, Oh yeah, Susie. She keeps on bugging me. She keeps on following up with me. She must. And so then when circumstances change and that no becomes, uh.

Joe McCall: When that no is like a not yet circumstances change the other offer that they got from that investor that really discouraged you because it was so much more than yours. Well, it was a blind offer that investor finally, you know, like, Oh, I can't do this. And so they canceled that contract. The realtor, it's been on the market for six months. The realtor can't sell it. And they're like, you know what? Susie must really want my property because she's the only one who's been following up and keeps on sending me these offers in the mail. I'm just telling you, it costs extra money to do it. But this just works.

Seth Williams: Would you still describe land investing as a low competition business?

Joe McCall: Compared to houses, yes. Yeah, because I'm big on the stats and the numbers. I did a lot of direct mail with houses. We were lucky if we got half to 1% response rate on our direct mail. With land, we're getting 3% to 5%. I did some marketing for a client just a few months ago in Michigan, and we had 13% response rates.

Seth Williams: What kind of list was that? How were you filtering that? What made it so good, do you think?

Joe McCall: Whenever I go into a market, I look at like, what's the median size property that's selling there? So like in some Michigan counties, it's maybe two acres. So they're bigger lots, right? So I'll pull a list of anybody that owns one to 40 acres. If the median price, if the median size is half an acre, I'll pull anybody that's got a quarter acre to 10 acres or something like that, right? So I will find like, where is the demand? And in this particular county, I don't just spray and pray. I really try to drill deep into the zip codes. And the land portal is really good at this. You drill down into the zip codes where the activity is happening. You find out, okay, well, what are people buying there? And then it's really easy to get a list. Anybody who owns land. And that's the list that I pull and mail to.

Seth Williams: So when I talk to somebody who tells me they sent 100,000 direct mail paces and got nothing from it,

Joe McCall: They're usually sending blind offers. This is why I don't like blind offers.

Seth Williams: Because I know those used to work, but do you think they don't work anymore? Or they only work if you make higher offers? Or like, why do you think that's something that's not working as well for people?

Joe McCall: Well, I think it still works, but you're going to have to spend three or four or $5,000 in marketing to do one deal. When if you send neutral postcards, neutral letters, you're going to send about 500 to $1,500. in marketing to do one deal. You're choosing which, where do you want to put your work? Now, when you're sending blind offers, you're doing your work upfront, right? Because you're getting a list, you're narrowing it down, you're filtering everything out. You're finding a good pricing for these properties, either by subdivision or neighborhood or acreage size or whatever. So you're spending all your time upfront and you're sending really targeted mail. The problem is I just have never liked that, right? I want to get as many phone calls as possible. So my philosophy always was, let me just send out the most neutral, boring, ugly postcard or letter, get as many calls as I can in, try to talk to all of them, send them all offers and follow up with every one of them every 30 days. Because now I've got more leads to work with. Now it is more work, like it's less work at the front end when I'm sending blind postcards. But, and then the work is in talking to them, following up, sending them an offer, you know. So it's like you choose what works or what doesn't. I, in my experience.

Joe McCall: When I've coached people and what I've seen other people talk about, you're going to spend about three to five grand in marketing to do a deal. If you're sending blind offers. Okay. But that's maybe that's fine. If you're spending five grand to make 20 grand, that's a really good ROI. So just go ahead and keep on doing that. But if you're sending neutral letters and postcards, you're going to send about a thousand bucks, maybe 1500 bucks, doing that. So it's like.

Joe McCall: The person that's spending three to five grand in direct mail, blind offers, when those leads come in, they're really good leads. You don't need to spend much time talking to them on the phone and negotiating. You don't have to do any follow up. Does that kind of make sense how I look at it?

Seth Williams: It's one of those things where, you know, back in 2019 and before that, this idea of sending blind offers are just people in the land business at all. There just weren't as many of them. Like there just wasn't a high enough volume for everybody to get inundated with them. But when like everybody sees that as the easy button and the way of doing it just doesn't take long before like people are getting hit by 20 of these things a month. That kind of thing. It's just like, look, enough. I mean, the whole nature of a blind offer is to be like, hey, this is a conversation starter. But if you don't like my number, don't call me back. Like you're almost telling the person not to call you back, which, you know, understandably stops the conversation. It's not going any further than that.

Joe McCall: It definitely is more competitive now than it was in 2019. What are we going to do about it? You know, I'm not going to cry about it. I'm not going to complain about it. there's nobody to complain about it too. I'm just going to work with what we've got. And I know for sure land investing is still way less competitive than houses. That's my filter. When I'm looking at houses, it's still cutthroat and super bad. It's probably less competitive now for houses than it was two or three years ago. There's not as many YouTube university wholesalers out there teaching this stuff as there used to be. But with land right now, I'm so excited about land. We're seeing higher response rates than we were a year ago. We're seeing less competition. We're seeing more motivated sellers responding to us. And it goes back to like a lot of this, I learned, believe it or not, when I was at an event, I was at a workshop. We're talking about masterminding. I was talking to a guy in the back of the room. I was a little annoyed with the person who was teaching because all he was doing was pitching. He was selling his program and stuff. So I was talking to somebody in the back. He's like, yeah. I said, what are you doing? He said, I do land. I said, how many deals a month do you do? And he said, I don't know, three or four. And he started explaining to me his operation. And he's like, it's real simple. I send out neutral postcards or letters. I send everybody to a voicemail. I send them an offer. I don't even call them back. I send them an offer and then I follow up every three to four weeks and I send them another offer and I send them another offer. I said, well, how do you, how do you follow up? He says, I do ringless voicemails, emails, and text messages.

Joe McCall: And I was like, boom, my mind exploded. Like, oh my gosh, that is so easy. So I came back and I started doing that with my teenage boys. At the time they were 13 and 14 years old. And I just started sending ugly, neutral letters, driving people to a voicemail. We would send everybody who left a voicemail an offer. We wouldn't even call them because I was wanting my boys to do this. And I know the numbers. Back then, it was one out of every 30 offers that we sent would get accepted. And we would, and that was after an average of about three months of follow-up. Okay. Then when I started doing it, where we would talk to them before we sent the offer, it jumped from about one out of 30 offers to about one out of 17 offers. So I, I just know it works. I see my clients right now doing deals. Like there's, can I, do I have time for one more story?

Seth Williams: Yeah, sure.

Joe McCall: Okay. There's a guy named Grant. He's in our community and a rock star. I get a call from a guy out in california. Hey, do you know grant? I's like, no What who like he's like, he's one of your students Like what do you mean? He's like this guy's doing three or four deals a month and you don't know who grant is He gave me his last name. I said I have no idea This guy's never been on any of my coaching calls I never see him in the facebook group and he's doing three or four deals a month or whatever and uh, he's in his late 30s And find out he lives like 15 minutes from me, So I was like I call this guy up. I said let's go have lunch and I was so excited to talk to him and he's like, man what are you doing I was so excited like what's what do you what's the secret what's the trick what do you how are you doing all these deals, he's like he I could tell he's getting a little annoyed he's like I just do what you tell me to do I send out this ugly letter everybody who calls leaves a voicemail I call him back I talked him for a few minutes I send them an offer, and I follow up every 30 days I send him another offer I text him my email and my ringless voicemail them that's all I do and his numbers he gets one deal out of every 600 letters that he sends. And it's one offer out of every 13 offers that he sends out. Now that's with follow-up. I was like, I was so blown away because.

Joe McCall: He's just really good at the simple, basic things. And it's not rocket science. He quit his job a year and a half ago or two years ago. He's still doing land. I just had lunch with him a month ago. He's still doing the same thing. Except now he just wholesales everything. Now he wants to start keeping some and selling with owner financing.

Seth Williams: Yeah. That kind of example, though, that's a great story. But that's the kind of thing where I think the tactics is where I like to obsess. And I realize that might not sell stuff as well. But like this idea of for every 600 letters you send out, you get a response for every 13 conversations you get an acceptance. Other assumptions buried in that that we're not talking about is like, where'd you get the list from? How did you fill it to the list? How much are these offers that you're making? What kinds of properties are they? Are these garbage properties nobody wants? Are they the most desirable ones out there? Like there's lots of unexplained things here that lead to this conclusion of those numbers. So like I could think I'm doing the same thing when I'm actually not at all. I'm doing it totally different than Grant was. And that's where I think like, no, it is important to actually know what precisely did you do to lead to that result? Because if I don't know that, then I'm kind of shooting blind.

Joe McCall: Well, let me tell you what he does. He's picked his market where he knows there's a lot of activity. He looks at the last six to 12 months. OK, in these counties, in these states, I'll just tell you he's in the Midwest. OK, in these counties, in these states, there's a lot of activity.

Seth Williams: When we say activity, do we mean like houses listed for sale? Do I mean land listed for sale? Land sold?

Joe McCall: No, just land solds in the last six to 12 months.

Seth Williams: Okay, gotcha.

Joe McCall: All right, so you can look at all the counties in this state and rank them by most solds to lease solds, vacant land in the last six months. All right, so pick a county.

Joe McCall: And then look at that and maybe drill down into the zip code if you want. But what's the median acreage size that's selling there? So you know there's already a lot of demand. Okay, now you can go to, there's a hundred different places you can get lists. I like the land portal. I know you do too. Freedom Soft King, you can get lists in there. So just pull a list of everybody who owns land in those areas that doesn't live, they're either out of county or out of zip code. They've owned it for over five years, maybe over 10 years. You have to do like, if everybody's buying five acre lots, okay, so pull a list of three to 20 acres or one to 20 acres, right? Just pull a list and if you want to use land portal, exclude landlocked, exclude slope above a certain thing, exclude wetlands, floodplains or whatever, right? Now you've got a list, just mail all of them a letter. And if you find a good market, mail them something every three or four months. So that's all he does. He's got about six counties that he just cycles through and he just mails them over and over and over again. He's got a good network of realtors there, title companies, buyers. So he's got a system in place. You're not going to get to where he is now overnight, but it's that consistency. Consistency beats perfection every single time. Just being consistent with those simple, basic things will yield results.

Seth Williams: Do you think there's any kind of person out there who should not be getting into the land investing business? Like what would have to be true for a person that's like, yeah, don't do this. This is not for you.

Joe McCall: That's a great question. Every time, sometimes it's funny. It's kind of fun being a coach because I see people all the time and I hate to admit this, but I look at them and think they're not going to do well. And then they do really well. And then I look at somebody else and like, oh, he's going to crush it. And then he doesn't. So I don't know the answer to that. But I think if you like to chase shiny objects, if you think chasing shiny objects, is productivity. Like don't stop chasing shiny objects. Okay. You need to focus on one niche.

Joe McCall: And be like a laser beam on that niche. Okay. Like if, whether it's houses or land, if it's subdivides or just wholesaling or selling with owner finance, whatever, like pick a niche and commit to it for at least a year into that thing. Okay. If you're always constantly chasing shiny objects, I would say maybe land investing isn't for you. That's number one. Number two, if you're not willing to be committed to this for at least three to six months before you quit or before you give up, then it's probably not for you. Like you need to be ready to stick it out and give it time to build the momentum. There's a real, this, this important principle, like building momentum that you have to give it time because you're not, most of their nose are going to come like at the beginning, like you, the most of your deals come from the followup. So you got to give that time. And if you are like I was, where you're a professional student and you're just chasing shiny, like you're buying all these courses and you're trying to do a little bit of what this guy says, a little bit with that lady says, and then you're trying to combine it and to make it your own little thing there. Just stop that.

Joe McCall: I would suggest everybody listening to this, pick one strategy, pick one model from somebody you trust and just do what they say to do and don't change anything. Give it at least six months of consistent effort, just being like locked in, laser focused, not trying to deviate from not trying to change it. Stop chasing shiny objects. Just be focused. Focus will make you rich. Shiny objects will make you go blind. As I always say that.

Seth Williams: Yeah. That's interesting to think about that because like for all of us land investors who have found success at it at some point land was a shiny object for all of us so like how do you know when it's a shiny object versus like no this is the real thing i should do it's like you can't really know until you chase the shiny object for a little bit right like how could somebody self-evaluate now and say no that's a shiny object i shouldn't be messing with that Well,

Joe McCall: It was a shiny object for me for like a year before I finally decided to look into it. Because I've been doing my podcast since 2011. And I remember interviewing some guys that were doing land. One of them, a really good guy, Scott Todd. And he was telling me the story. He was working for a rental car company and the executive level. And he saw the writing on the wall and he started doing land and would built up a passive cashflow portfolio to replace his income if and when he got fired. And I started like thinking and started listening to these podcasts and interviewing people who were doing land And I was looking for something to do with my boys My teenagers because I wanted them to learn real estate, but I didn't want to put them into houses It's they have to talk to sellers. They have to negotiate. They have to understand ARVs and repairs and all that So I started looking and studying the land and that's when I decided all right i'm going to do this I did it myself and then I started doing it with my boys, And then after Maybe about a year I started teaching it to other people So it's different for everybody.

Seth Williams: So on the whole coaching, teaching thing. So you are very good at getting people interested in this business. I know like whenever I log into Facebook, I can't remember the last time I didn't see a Joe McCall ad. I mean, it's just like I can't I can't get away from you. So it must be working for you, especially when I look at like the way that the land business has gotten harder over the past five or so years. How do you balance making the land opportunity compelling enough that people pay attention versus giving them a realistic picture of how difficult it can be because it's it's a weird thing like i know on one hand like it's an incredible business there's huge opportunity on the other hand like there's some real difficult things about this like very tricky things that a lot of people can't and shouldn't be doing so like it's always a weird thing like how do i present an objective view of it where people understand both? How do you do that?

Joe McCall: Well, that's a good question. I love marketing. I'm a student of marketing. I love internet marketing. I mean, I've got these awards on my wall from a click funnels on, on selling a bunch of stuff. I got the Inc 5,000 awards. Like I, it's a game to me in a certain sense of like, I'm trying to make as much money as I can for myself, my family, trying to like, I'm trying to grow my business. I'm excited about what I do. I love Monday mornings. I love doing what I do. I really am passionate about it.

Joe McCall: So sometimes whenever people complain, like you're everywhere on Facebook, Joe, just take a breath, stop. So I always apologize. I'm sorry, you know, but I'm telling you like this, this business of like selling, coaching, software services, done for you services, consulting courses. I really enjoy doing that. I really, I'm passionate about it because I know I'm helping people. I'm making a difference in spite of the hate that I get. I know I'm helping more people than I am getting people angry at me. And so I feel like I'm making a difference and leaving a legacy. I like sharing. When I learn something that's working for me, I love sharing it out there. So like, but it's not for everybody. So this is why I do so many things for free. I give away a ton of free stuff on my YouTube. I get my book is free. You just pay for shipping and handling. And believe me, when I send a book for free, I'm, it costs me more money than I am collecting to send that out because of everything that goes on behind the scenes. And so when I do a five day challenge every single week, that's free and I present the offer, you know, when I, when I do my five day challenge, I tell people at the very beginning, I say, listen, how many of you think that I have a program to sell? And I ask, I look at the chat and And everybody says yes. Yes. I say all right. Well, you know what i'm not going to disappoint you I do have a program to sell but.

Joe McCall: I'm going to do it on a special breakout session on Thursday. So just put your wallets away, take a deep breath, relax. I'm going to teach you some really cool things. And then on Thursday, if you want to hear about my program, it's going to be an extra program, like another Zoom session. If you want to hear about it, then come on over to this other Zoom room and I'll tell you all about it. We get about 75 to 85% of everybody that hears that will show up to that breakout session. So nobody can accuse me of cramming it down their throat or just all pitching and all selling. It's like, no, if you don't like it, that's fine. And then I give them all their money back after they do it, just whether they do a deal or not. So my goal is to be the best educator, the best coach out there in the real estate space. And so, yeah, I spend a lot of money on ads. I spend a lot of money. I want my goals to spend even more because I feel like I've got a message that I can share and help with people. And if you can't afford my program, that's fine. I have tons of YouTube videos where people can watch and learn it for free. And I share, I don't think I had anything really, except I don't give my contracts away. Sometimes I do. That's my story.

Seth Williams: How do you measure and qualify when you are helping people? How do you put the checkbox? Like, yep, I helped them. Is it when they take your course and become like super successful at it? Or I don't like, and I wanted this for myself too. I guess there's like helping by giving them entertainment value. There's giving them new ideas of stuff they might not have known. There's a version where they actually go out and make a bunch of money. I contrast that with this other truth that like a lot of people who sign up for courses and coaching never actually do anything with it. So like, did I really help them? I don't know. How do you think through that?

Joe McCall: I don't know if it's my call to make. I'm helping people by, if you go to my podcast or my YouTube channel, I give away a ton of free stuff in there so they can learn how to do it on their own if they can't afford a coaching program. I interview a lot of people who have software that can help them grow their business where I don't even make any commissions on that. But I just want to feature them because I know this is a software that could maybe help you if you want to do X, Y, Z. There's two ways to help people that I try to do. Number one, I think my number one job is to get them to believe in themselves and to get them to believe that they can actually do it. That's the hardest part, to get people to believe that they can actually do this, no matter if you're young or old.

Joe McCall: There is nothing stopping you if you really want it bad enough. There's nothing stopping you from doing deals, quitting your job, building a retirement, building your passive income portfolio. There is no excuses. If you're willing to take responsibility and take massive action, you will succeed. I guarantee it. So getting people to believe that they can do it is my number one job. And my second job is to show them the tactics and the strategies. I feel like that's right. And then once in a while when I can, I share my faith a little bit. I'm not way out there about it, but I'm trying to live a good life. That is an example. We donate a lot of money. We try to be really generous with what we have. So maybe I can lead a little bit by example. That would be a win for me.

Seth Williams: Well, Joe, it's been great to talk to you. I know some of these questions might be kind of weird, probably not your typical podcast interview questions, but if anybody's up for answering this kind of stuff, it's you. You seem very open and willing to go there. So I appreciate you doing that. And if people want to check out more of your stuff, follow up with you, anything, where should they go? What should they do?

Joe McCall: Well, my YouTube channel, I try to do stuff out there at least once or twice a week. The last few weeks I've been doing these shorts and these reels every day. So go follow me on Instagram or YouTube. If you want my book, I wrote a book called Flip Dirt, Not Houses. You can go to flipdirtbook.com. It's free. You pay shipping and handling. I don't know how much shipping and handling is. I do a five-day challenge. If you go to flipdirtchallenge.com, you might have to do www.flipdirtchallenge.com if you're interested in that. Facebook, I'm out there.

Seth Williams: Cool. Awesome. Yeah. Appreciate that, Joe. I'll have the show notes for this episode at retipster.com forward slash 288. Joe, again, great to talk to you. As always, thanks for being here. All the listeners out there, we'll talk to you next time.