This is episode number 2,153. Jill and I are talking about what’s the catch to Land Academy education program? Somebody asked this in an open forum question months ago, and I had a blast answering it and I think everybody got a lot out of it, so I want to recreate it here.

This is funny.

All week this week, Jill and I have been talking about running your land business better.

If I had to say what’s the catch, I’m going to push you to make money, next. I’m going to push you to do great deals, next.

How To Handle Competition In Land Flipping Mailers

Now I’m putting it in the title. What I mean by this is, is this a scam? There are so many people on the internet that are selling education. You’re just the next guru. We’ll address that here in a second. Each day on the show, we answer a question from our Land Academy member Discord forum. Take a deep dive into land-related topics by popular request.

Joseph wrote, “Here’s a question for the group. I’m going through a mailer that’s 5,000 pieces of mail. I’m up to a record 2,600 and I’ve already come across eight separate land-flipping companies. I Google them. I think this area is saturated/covered. What would you do and compete knowing you’ve got something special? Not mail and move on? I am confused.” That’s the end of the question. He’s about to send it out and he’s looking to see who the owners are?

He’s going through the tail end of his mailer and he’s removing not logical male recipients like the US government or the city of X. He’s removing people that shouldn’t be there and he’s doing what we say to do, looking at the mailer.

I’d leave them. You don’t know their situation. You have no idea what’s going on with that person. They could be like something in their life going on. I would leave them in, like land whatever LLC in the mailer, I say let him get your letter. I get letters.

What he’s asking here, I’m reading between the lines is, “There’s competition. I’m not the first person who was mailing the zip code since 1987. You are not the same first person.

It’s true.

Every business has competition, and you must decide, even before joining Land Academy, how you will handle it. Share on X

Why Personality Matters In This Business

Every business has competition. You have to sit and decide before you even choose to become a member of Land Academy. You need to decide how you’re going to handle competition in the industry that you’re entering. I can tell you how it’s been handled since cavemen. You need to build a better mousetrap. You need to be better however these transactions are going down in the zip code that you’re thinking about mailing. I can guarantee you, there are sellers that are not happy. You have to solve whatever’s happening in that environment better.

I can tell you what our secret weapon is. Jill doesn’t know this, but if a seller receives ten letters, the seller picks up the phone ten times and makes ten phone calls. This is call number one, “Give me a callback. I do want to my land.” Call number two, “This is Jane. I want to sell my property. Please give me a call back.” She does that eight times and of those eight calls, she’s getting a voice machine, which we say never do. At Land Academy, we want someone to live to answer the phone. It dramatically increases your chances of buying that piece of property.

Now, eight people have been knocked out already. There are a couple of people of those eight that might call her back. By the time that happens, she’s already talking to the last two. Number ten is Jill. Number nine is a person who answers the phone like this, “This is Jack.” “This is Jane. I’d love to sell my land.” “I’ll look at it and I’ll call you.” Are you going to call that person back? There’s Jill. That is the secret weapon to this business.

Having an amazing dynamic personality, pulling yourself up by your bootstraps when the phone starts ringing and the mailers going out and creating real estate deals and friends at the same time. Years ago, I would have laughed at this. I would have said, “There’s no real social component to any of this. It’s about getting the mail out, pricing it correctly, and collecting the offers, the signed offers, and doing the deals.” That was my business model until I met Jill and until it didn’t work. We had to change. We did because of her.

The Reality Of Business Competition

Are we still on the question, because I have one more point on the question, or have we moved on to the topic?

Go ahead.

My point on the question is too with Joseph, I just said, “Why would you ever think that our business is immune to competition? Can you think of one business out there on the planet that doesn’t have any competition?”

In his defense, he’s like, “I’m just asking you what would you do?”

Which is true, but I wanted to answer. I’m not picking on you, Joseph. I want to answer this in a bigger scale is why.

This question I put it in here plagues our industry and I don’t know why.

The secret weapon to this land investing business is having an amazing dynamic personality. Share on X

I don’t care. What you just said, “There’s going to be other people in our space and that’s why you’re going to do it better.” You’re going to win them over. You’re going to be the one that follows through. You’re going to be the solid one that gets a deal done, period. Move on. You’re going to send out enough mail to make the money that you want to make this month, or this quarter, or this year.

That’s it.

Thanks. Moving on to the topic.

What’s The Catch To The Land Academy Education Program?

Our topic is What’s a Catch to the Land Academy Education Program? Here’s the catch, we are not here to collect money from you and sell your education.

This is voluntary. By the way, if this doesn’t seem to you, please don’t do it. I’m not here to talk you into something.

I’m not here to stand in front of an airplane and tell you that it’s mine and convince you that I’m amazing. I’m not here to 10X anything or take your money or sell you something you don’t want. What I’m here to do is provide an education experience. Not just in the education itself, but create a community that you can potentially be a part of and participate in to make me, Jill, and everybody else here better at buying and selling land. Monetarily, that means if you folks find a great deal, maybe you bring it to us so we can partner it for you or maybe we don’t.

It’s optional.

If we tried to live off of Land Academy itself, it wouldn’t happen. I call it LandAcademy.org. It’s a nonprofit. What I get out of this is the potential to be your partner and you are educated in the business now after a few months or a year the right way. You’re pulling deals that are real.

What’s the catch?

We are constantly getting people from other groups out there and they’re shaking their head. They’re refreshed from the Land Academy model because they spent $20,000 on something or some number. It’s constant. Every week, you have people coming in and saying, “Thank God you guys tell the truth.”

“You’re real people.”

There is no catch to Land Academy. If you want to try to find a catch, that’s the catch. Share on X

There is no catch to Land Academy. If you want to try to find a catch, that’s it. The catch is we would love to be your business partner when you find good real estate deals. We’d love to fund your deal.

There you go. The catch for me is I get upset when people come into this space and they don’t do it and don’t make money. I want you to be successful. The catch is, I’m going to be mad if you’re not trying. That’s it because I only want people here that want to do this. That are here to change their situation, pay off whatever, retire their wives, retire themselves, or their husbands. That’s the Land Academy lady’s motto, “Retire your husband.” That’s what I want and I’m going to push you to do that. That’s the catch. If you’re in it with us, I’m going to try to make you rich.

Sharing Our Proven Land Academy Model

When we started this in 2015, every other question was this, “This is ridiculous. Tell me why I can send a bunch of mail out. This isn’t going to work.” They would question our business model and then a few of them would get past that point. They’d send a mailer out, do a bunch of deals, and come to us begging us not to tell anybody else. I want to be the last Land Academy member. Don’t let the cat out of the bag. In fact, before we started all this, Jill and I sat down very seriously on vacation and said, “Do we really want to do this?”

We’re shooting ourselves in the foot by sharing our business model.

We’re all past that now. Everybody knows it works. The issue now is that you have to navigate through the internet and pick the group that you want to be a part of. You can pick a group that’s done five deals in the last eight years and they’re regurgitating whatever else they have on the internet.

The vast majority of the people who start these education programs are former Land Academy members. More than 90% of them. They’re a lot less experienced. They’re probably better internet marketers. We are not the best internet marketers. There’s no catch. The catch is we want you to succeed. If it’s appropriate, send us a dealer or send it your dealer away and we’ll split it 50/50 and fund the whole thing. Until you have enough money, then you don’t need us.

You pay it forward in the group. It’s awesome. Thank you to those of you. There are quite a few of you who have been with us this whole journey through the years. I want to say we appreciate you. It’s so great because we’re all doing bigger and better deals together.

Join us in the next episode for a bunch of new episodes. You’re not alone in your real estate ambition. We are Jack and Jill. Information and inspiration to buy undervalued property.