This is episode number 2156. Jill and I are talking about how we would’ve started a land business or built our land business from scratch in 2025.

I have some ideas.

Let’s hear it.

I’m not going to say it now.

Give us a prelude.

Outsourcing.

I love that. That didn’t even cross my mind, Jill. That’s smart.

Thank you.

What else?

I’ll save it. I’ll tell you in a minute.

This week, all week, Jill and I are talking about developing and improving your land business. Each day on the show, we answer a question from our Land Academy Member Discord Forum. We will take a deep dive into land related topics by popular request.

Lessons From Past Deals: The Ones That Went Great & The Ones That Didn’t

Jason wrote, “Hello, Land Academy peeps. I’m wondering if you all could share some real-world advice about deals or deals that went great and ones that did not go well at all. Thanks in advance.” That’s awesome. How much time do we have?

Why Bad Deals Are Rare (And How To Avoid Them Altogether)

First of all, let’s just look at the numbers. I have 15,998 positive deals that I could talk about, maybe 2 or 3 or 4, if that, maybe not even that, that didn’t go well. In fact, let’s just put it this way. The ones that didn’t go well took a long time to sell and we still made money. I don’t have any catastrophic, “I paid $200,000 for that. It turns out I didn’t own it and I lost $200,000.” I don’t have any example like that. Do you?

No. It’s funny. As I was doing a coaching call and the person asked me. They were brought in as a business partner with this other person because the person realized, “I need this guy on my team. I very smartly brought in this guy who’s going to do great business partner.” He just asked a few questions as we’re talking about focus stuff. He had a few side questions of one of them. He said, “Where’s the risk in all this?” I said, “You don’t buy it. That’s it.” I don’t see anything we do as risk. If I have any doubt about a property or I’m not sure about it, I don’t buy it.

The Key To Avoiding Risk: Just Don’t Buy Bad Deals

I don’t see any risk in this at all. In fact, that’s the answer to this question. The deals that didn’t go well for us, we will never know. There are 1 or 2 deals I know of where we turned it down, especially in deal funding. Somebody else went and did the deal and everybody’s celebrating on Discord that they made $1 million or millions of dollars.

There's no risk in buying and selling land for us. Share on X

Jill and I were looking at each other going, “Yeah. Even if I saw it again now, if I could turn the clock back and it’s presented to me, I would’ve said no again.” Jill and I have a template deal that we both love. For some reason, it’s pretty close to the same. Those deals didn’t fit the bill. They were too risky. For some reason, we saw some risk in it. There is no risk in buying and selling land for us. None. For you, there might be, I don’t know. For me, even from the first deal I did, I did not see any risk in it.

I’m going to argue, if you see risk, then don’t do it. You know a sure thing and wait for those.

If you see risk in real estate at all, then just find another entrepreneurial outlet for yourself.

Where are you going to have no risk?

You have to decide that for yourself. There’s all kinds of stuff that people see no risk in.

I get it. That’s true.

My mother spent her entire career as a clinical therapist working 10 or 12 hours a day and she loved it for the most part. I don’t want to do that. I see all kinds of risk in that. The patients stop coming or all kinds of stuff. It’s just a mindset.

If you’re really good at your job, then they don’t need you anymore.

Jill’s father was a career commercial airline and then private airline pilot. For a lot of people, including me, there’s some risk in that. I bet you $1, if he was sitting here, he’d say, “What are you talking about? Risk? I was a pilot. There’s no risk in that.”

He didn’t see any risk. “If I didn’t like it, I didn’t go.”

Risk is personal. I don’t see 1% risk in buying and selling land.

Do you know where I see more risk in?

What?

Getting pregnant. There’s all kinds of risk. What kind of kid are we going to have? There’s some risk.

You know what’s absent in my book that I’m writing? Personal stuff. Until I meet you. There’s a bunch of it.

Is there a lot of risk? Is there a whole chapter on risk? Risk before Jill and risk after Jill?

40 days on market is better than 400 Days on market. Share on X

There’s not a chapter. There’s a section about how to put the brakes and have your career come to a grinding halt. It’s a short section.

What was that all about? Is it me?

No, it was way before it. This is in the early days. Get married, and share a bank account with the freshly married person. You, too. You’re freshly married. Those things will wreck your thing fast. This episode’s topic, how would we build a land business from scratch in 2025? What would you do, Jill?

Outsourcing: The Smartest Way To Scale In 2025

Outsource everything. If it was me and I was coming into this and I didn’t have you, let’s just say it was only me and I learn about this business and I see the other strong women which are in Land Academy, I’d be like, “I’m going to do that. I’m going to follow them and I’m going to outsource and I’m going to align myself and partner up.” If I could partner up with another strong woman, that’d be great. If not, like I said, I would do my best. I understand the big picture and outsource the stuff I’m not good at simply.

What are the things for me that I’m talking about? I’m great on the phone. I don’t have to worry about that. I’m great at doing due diligence. I don’t have to worry about that. I’m great at selling. I don’t have to worry about that. I’ve learned from you picking the areas and all that stuff. The minutiae, getting into the data doing, the red, yellow, green test. Can I struggle through it? Sure. Would it take me longer? Yeah.

That’s where I would outsource it. I would have other people that I would pay them to help me run these tests. I know what I want. I know what it should be in the outcome, so I would outsource some of that stuff. I would use like Offers 2 Owners. I hadn’t thought about that. That could be an Offers 2 Owners product, by the way, maybe running red, yellow, green test for people. I know people right now that are hung up on that.

They can do the phishing/trolling and see it, but when popping the zip codes in and putting that stuff in there, that slows them down a little bit. Just a thought. That’s how I would get past that. Once I have the answers and I’m looking at the 25 zip codes, it’s not hard for me to go, “Yeah, 40 days on market is better than 400 days on market. I got that one. New list is sold. I can tell that’s better than that,” and so on.

Interpreting The Red-Green-Yellow Test To Make Smarter Decisions

Let me take that a couple steps further before I answer the question. You have 25 zip codes in a red, green, yellow test. I know, because i’ve done countless number of reviews for red, green, yellow tests. I know this, that some version of this is going to happen. There are probably 5 or 8 zip codes that really pass out of a set of zip codes of 25. We are all relatively green.

There’s another set of the 25, let’s just say another 5, so now we’ve got almost half the zip codes that are yellow or acceptable. There’s green, there’s yellow or acceptable and there’s a few zip codes that are approaching the red scenario that are probably okay. There’s a handful, let’s say five, that are dark red. You want to avoid them.

Usually, the big red flag for a red, green, yellow test is zip codes that have 2% or 3% or 4% of the properties, the entire universe of properties in that zip code for sale. There’s something wrong when that it’s happening. We’re seeing that in this economy more and more. I’ll let you rewind that if you have to. It’s super important. The red, green, yellow test is not just to tell you where to send mail. It’s all equally important to show you where you should not send mail.

That was a discussion I had. I mentioned that at the coaching call that I had with the guy who brought in the partner. One of the things the partner said was, “How do I know?” I said, “The data’s going to tell you.” I was screen sharing at the time and showing. I said, “Let’s look back. Look how many things were sold in the last six months. Let’s go back 90 days. Look at that. Let’s go back three months. Look at that. The data tells you.” He’s like, “Yeah, I get it.”

The Biggest Reason People Struggle: Lack Of Confidence

When people say, “I can’t get past the red, green, yellow test,” it’s not that they can’t get past the mechanics of doing it because that’s pretty simple. In almost all cases, they don’t have the confidence to interpret it. I will take all the mystery out of interpreting the red, green, yellow test. This should maybe have been the title.

You’re going to screw half of it up and you should know that. I know. That’s it. As long as you’ve got 5,000 or 8,000 good mailers out, the other ones, I don’t know, maybe I’m screwed something up or misinterpreted or whatever, I just don’t care. That’s what I’m trying to do is buy property.

It comes back to drive.

What do I do in those 25? Zip codes. There is a seller who’s dying to get your offer. I’m telling you, they’re going to sell you their property for 20% of what it’s worth that minute. That’s what you focus on. Not, “Am I doing this right? I might suck at this. I hate Excel. This is too hard.” None of that. That’s why people stop. That’s what this is really about.

You have to believe in yourself. You have to have that level of confidence and just stop. You need to execute a plan and move forward. Share on X

What would I do if I started a land business from scratch in 2025? I’m going to tell you a very brief story. On my desk, I am staring at an NDA for the act potential acquisition of a company that i’ve been looking at. Jill, not so much. Here’s the particulars of that company without disclosing it at all. It’s a food manufacturing business that has been in business for 50-plus years, believe it or not.

The people started it in the 1970s. They have built a brand on manufacturing five specialty products that are distributed to local grocery stores and specialty food markets. They don’t usually sell the products that they make to the public. They have an outlet for that, but they don’t like it. It’s the same mom and pop. They’re in their 80s and they’re done. The price of the entire company is $500,000. They make about $320,000 a year. They have for the last five years.

I didn’t ask for financial statements prior to that. They have an unrelated third-party accountant that does the equivalent of a desk audit every year. They don’t do their own financial statements. The only reason I bring it up is because it’s real. Financial statements are real and reviewed by an unrelated third-party. It’s a lot like what’s happening in our federal government right now.

Why wouldn’t I do this deal? People who do acquisitions for a living wait for a long time for a deal like this to come onto their desk. Here’s where I’m answering the question. The conversation that Jill and I had about this company is that we could take this thing to the moon. What’s it going to take to do that? They’re in the dark edges of our advertising and marketing. They don’t have any. It’s a husband-and-wife team, which is perfect for Jill and I. The wife knows everybody, all their customers on a first-name basis on the phone.

It’s going to take at least between 1 and 3 years for Jill and I to dedicate probably 30% of our working hours to taking this net $300,000 business to $3 million. We both know we can do it. I don’t see any risk in it. I don’t think you do, either. We could do it. The question is, do we want to? How motivated are we? What does it look like at the end? Great. Probably at the end of 2 or 3 years, we’ll be $2 million to $5 million more wealthy. Does that matter or not?

If I would’ve gone back and started my land business right now, I would be asking myself, “Do I want to have $3 million to $5 million after 2 to 3 years of doing this? Do I love land? Do I love the food that they manufacture? Is this something I’m really willing to give it my all or some version of my all to make sure? Do I know how to do this halfway?”

I don’t and neither does she. Once we get into it, we’re going to get into it. I’m right at this pivotal point where I have to make a decision about buying this company. We’re probably not going to buy it. It’s not because we can’t do it. It’s not because it’s not a great company. It’s all just like the land business. It’s the greatest opportunity ever, buying and selling land. It’s simple. The barrier to entry in this is less than $5,000 for you to start doing land deals. In the case of this company, it’s $500,000, which is not a lot for us. It’s a good tax situation.

Believe In Yourself & Execute The Plan

You have to believe in yourself. You have to have that level of confidence and you need to just not stop. You need to execute a plan and move forward. That’s what I would do. That’s what was missing largely because of my age back then. It’s all about looking in the mirror and grabbing whatever resources you need you can find on the internet to help you create or redevelop a dynamic personality to get on the phone and do some amazing stuff. Just forget about failing or where money’s coming from or all of that. You’re going to wake up very wealthy one day soon if you do that. Is that boring?

No, it was great.

What were you thinking about?

Nothing. I’m listening.

Poor Jill. She’s the most patient person in the world. Thank you. Join us next time where we discuss how to stay profitable in a slower landmark, which is right now. You are not alone in your real estate ambition. We are Jack and Jill. Information and inspiration to buy undervalued property.