Thriving Through Change: The Importance Of Adaptability In Business

This is a Land Academy show. This is episode number 2150. Jill and I are talking about what makes a land business sustainable for the long term.

Anyone knows that it’s you. You have had this land business for, I don’t know, 30 years?

Yeah, 30 years.

If that’s not proof that you can do it and survive all these ups and downs.

You nailed the topic. It’s survival. How do you survive? You adapt to your environment.

What we’re coming into in 2025, we’ve seen it before. I’m a little excited. It’s not our first rodeo. It’s not my first rodeo. It’s your fourth rodeo. It’s my second with so many properties available and a little bit upside down on all kinds of things. I’m looking forward to it. I’m not fearful of trying to hold on to my money. I am more optimistic and excited, like, “What can I sell? I’m going to put it into something great right now. This is awesome.”

I agree with you. I’m going to tell a little story, and then we’re going to answer the question. I’ll give you the answer in my comments to the story and the actual topic in an effort to reduce the amount of time going over these topics every single time. It’s my fault.

In a normal situation, I’m the talker, but when you put a microphone in front of you, you’re the talker.

Do you know why? I’ll tell you why. There’s a lot of great stuff going on in 2025. That’s what this is all about. There’s so much change. Things are changing. People are dropping out of this business left and right because they don’t know how to change. That’s part of Jill’s excitement. She knows we’re going to thrive during this change. That’s what this topic is about.

Here’s my little anecdotal story. Land Academy will be 10 years old in 2025. We’ve been doing this for ten years. In one of the first Career Paths that Jill and I instructed, a guy came to us. He was in there and he said, “For two years, I’ve been sending mail to the Dallas area and buying infill lots with crazy success. I send out the mail here and it works. I change subdivisions and move around a little bit.

Why You Shouldn’t Remove People From Your Land Investing List

I buy 2 or 3 properties, resell them, and make $20,000 to $30,000 for each property. The last two mailers I sent out don’t work anymore. Land Academy sucks. This sucks. It’s over. The business is over.” I’ll give you my comments in a minute. Each day on the show, we answer a question from our Land Academy member Discord Forum and take a deep dive into land-related topics by popular request.

Here’s the question. Aaron wrote, “Those of you who have been mailing for many years, do you keep track of who asked to be taken off of your list? Do you ever clear out that list and mail them again anyway? Life changes and every season brings a new batch of sellers. It might make sense to mail them again at some point, maybe even in five years.”

Life changes, and every season brings a new batch of callers. Share on X

You’re an expert at this.

I never take them off the list. Many times, I know it’s a brand-new area that we’re going into and they may have gotten a letter a year ago, six months ago, or who even knows when it was. They don’t keep track of who is reaching out to them. The phone call is often a version of, “I told you this before,” when I know that didn’t happen. Some of the time, too, they hang up so fast. It’s like, “Take me off your list.” I’m like, “I would love to, but I have no idea who you are and I have no idea what property this is, so it’s not possible anyway.” I’m not going to spend the time. The point is, don’t worry about it.

What you wrote, Aaron, is true. Any seller that I talk to and we don’t agree on a price, usually, that’s the thing. If I’m not buying a property, it’s either not a good property and I don’t want it at any price or we’re not in agreement on the price. The reason they’re not in agreement is that they don’t need the dough. It’s not hurting them. They’re happy to die with it, whatever it is.

I always tell them, “Hang on to my letter. Please put it in your file. You never know because things do change.” I urge them to save it. Coming back around some time, sure. They’re not going to remember if you mailed them a year ago or five years ago. Your letter might pop up at the exact time that they need it. Hopefully, they save it and they call you back in a year or five years and go, “Aaron, you’re still around. I wasn’t into it then but I need the dough now. Do you still want this property?”

I’m going to ask you some questions. I send out 10,000 letters and get 100 responses back. Ten of those responses I consider as acquisitions. That means 90 responses were unsatisfactory to me of any kind. Why would I reduce that number? Why would I reduce those 90? I want to make this more efficient because I’m Mr. Accountant. I want to avoid those 90 touches. I only want to talk to the ten people who want to sell. Why would I do that?

I do not understand the question.

The answer is this. It’s because I am avoiding something. This is not you, Aaron. You’ve been with us for a long time. I’m glad you asked the question. It’s everybody, including me. I don’t want to talk to anybody who’s mad at me about my letter, but that’s part of this. I would love, and maybe AI will do this soon, to type in a question on the Internet like, “AI, please list the five people in New Jersey that are most likely to sell their house and put their phone numbers in there.” That’s what we all want. Good luck when that happens because everybody else is going to do it and then it’s an easy button. You never learn how to parallel park the car.

I’m not worried about it.

Hold on a second. I want to stick to this. After ten years of teaching and instructing Land Academy, the root of probably 50% of the questions is, “How can I do this to avoid X?” You can’t. You cannot avoid what Jill does. If you’re going to be very successful at it, you cannot avoid putting together a well-priced mailer like I do, executing it, getting it in the mail, and then having somebody, whether it’s you or not, answer the phone with a big, huge smile on your face and create a real estate deal.

If you're going to be very successful at land investing, you cannot avoid putting together a well-priced mailer. Share on X

Are we doing the topic? I want to make sure because I have some stuff to add.

We can move on to the topic.

The Real Secret To A Sustainable Land Business

Let’s talk about the topic. The topic is What Makes A Land Business Sustainable In The Long Term?

I got to answer that question from the beginning, too.

Which question?

The guy from the original Career Path situation who was mailing the heck out of Dallas with amazing success. The business changed. The other people caught on, not because he talked about it but because other people figured out in the industry that buying infill lots and reselling them in the Dallas area is profitable. He got himself a little competition. The guy’s still with us and he’s doing great work. I answered the question back then like I’m answering it now. You have to roll with the changes. That’s the topic. Go ahead. What makes a land business sustainable for the long-term?

There are a couple of points. Number one, what makes this sustainable for the long-term? At the very end of it, it’s like every other business. You have the drive, dedication, and determination that you will solve problems, not run from them, and roll with the times, adapt, and adjust however is needed. I was talking to somebody about this. I was doing a coaching call with this cool couple in Florida. They’re brand-new members. I was like, “You guys are going to fit right in.”

They have had other businesses. There’s one that they’re getting out of because it’s not working, but they’re not done. It’s not like they’re going to go, “This is it. The party is over.” They’re pivoting and looking for something else. That could be even more sustainable than their other businesses. I’m sure that they had rolled through a lot of punches with that other company. You have to have that tenacity.

What I was explaining to them was that I’ve been side by side with you for 16 years, and you were doing it 15 years before that. You weathered so many storms, and then I weathered half of them with you. Were there times that we didn’t make as much money as I wanted to that year? Yeah. Were there times I sold properties for less than I wanted to? Yeah, but did I make a profit? Yeah. Did I put food on the table? Yeah because we did all the other things right. We stuck with it.

You bring up a good point we haven’t talked about in a while. The pivot from your core business when you started this was an online click-and-pay all-automated system with a team behind the scenes doing deeds like machines. Now, it’s a conversation and nurturing sellers a little bit, not a lot. I’m not talking anybody into anything but it’s a whole different world now. We changed with it. We didn’t give up. We figured out new things and we changed, and we continue to change. Instead of running from it, I’m ready for it.

We’re trying to stay ahead of it. That’s one of the things that you do that you’re so good at. Every week, you sit us down on Thursday on calls and look at numbers and stats. You’re preparing us all for what’s coming, like, “You guys need to see this. Let’s look at interest rates. This is what this means. Look at days on market changing. Look at inventory levels changing. Look at land prices changing,” or whatever it is. You’re preparing us so we can be ready and be ahead of it, or at least we have the tools so we know how to go into the waves. I don’t let the wave knock me down. I go into the wave the right way.

Sustainability comes from adjusting to what's in your face, overcoming, and adapting. Share on X

That’s a great example.

I’m ready for it. I’m standing on the beach with my surfboard. It’s sunset. I’m in my teal blue bikini. There is enough sand blowing into my hair. I have a light mist of sea spray on my face and my chest and it’s glistening. I see this huge wave, which is summer 2025, coming at me. I pick up my board and I’m getting ready to nose down and run out there. That’s what I’m doing.

I’m going to paraphrase. If you have an effective level of self-confidence, you’re going to wake up every morning and you’re going to say some version of this to yourself, “I am going to adjust how I make decisions and respond to what goes on in my day so that I become a better person for it at the end and hopefully more wealthy.”

You are not going to wake up angry because somebody’s in a political office that you don’t like, your kids didn’t clean up their room as you asked, or your boss is an idiot. What you’re going to do is say, “I’m going to adjust to this. In extreme situations, I might tell my boss to go F himself because there’s a better solution that I created. It took me a year, but I found a better solution for myself. Today is the day that he’s gone out of my life.” That is what makes businesses sustainable.

It’s not so much the business. It’s you having the confidence to say, “Not enough mail went out. The mail went out to the wrong place last month. The person who is negotiating my deals for me isn’t working out. It’s a pain in the butt. I’m not going to get mad about it. I’m going to do something about it.” Sustainability comes from adjusting to what’s in your face and overcoming it. Adapt and overcome like the Marine Corps. Join us in the next episode. We will talk about the advantages of partnering versus going solo in your land business. You are not alone in your real estate ambition. We are Jack and Jill, information and inspiration to buy undervalued property.