This is episode number 2163. Jill and I talk about the simple daily routine that keeps your land business running smoothly. Here’s a hint. It’s the same thing that makes your life run smoothly or not. It’s the exact same thing.

I’m going to talk about this. I had a coaching call. It was already successful people who had done a lot of seller financing deals and everything. This was a little bit of an eye-opener when I sat and talked about this topic.

Eyeopener to them?

Yeah. They thought they were doing it. I was like, “You need to do this better.” I helped with that. I’ll share more in a few minutes.

Optimizing Land Mailer Pricing: Mastering The “Testing For Reason” Strategy

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.

Brent D. wrote, “I’m working on mailer pricing for my first mailer. A bit confused about testing for a reason. If I look at a neighboring property that has a home on it, and the home is valued at $400,000, as I understand it, the land value would be approximately 10% or $40,000, right? $40,000 is the land value. Should our offer price come in at $40,000 or do we apply the 25% rule to that and price it at $10,000?”

I’m glad that you asked this question. Testing for a reason, for everybody else, is when you’re done with the mailer and you’re staring at a full spreadsheet. You haven’t sent it to Offers2Owners. You sort for ZIP code and then APN. You’ve got blocks and blocks of APNs that are a like-kind acreage size, and you pick one. You’re simulating. The offer came back signed. The seller called you and said, “I like your offer price. Thanks very much.”

What you’re doing is testing whether or not you would accept the offer, or testing whether or not you’re going to jump around your office and say, “This is the greatest thing ever. This person signed this offer at $18,000, which is what I offered. I know I can sell it for $32,000,” or, “I offered $82,000 for this. I think I can sell it for $32,000. I might have to go back and recheck my pricing.” That’s testing for a reason. Brent, what you should not have in your land mailer is houses.

He’s confusing land and infill lots. That’s where we’re going here.

Thank you. You should not be paying more than 10% of the house value.

You should not be paying more than 10% of a house value if it's an infill lot. Share on X

If it’s an infill lot.

Correct. In fact, I would say it’s closer to 5%. With the way the market conditions are, there’s a ton of property on the market.

The way it’s working out is correct if it’s infill lots. You’re buying at 5% of what the value would be when it’s all done.

A hospice next door is $400,000. You should be at $20,000, which is 5% max.

We should be trying to look for like-kind properties if we’re in rural vacant land.

That’s correct. I’d leave the house out of it. I’ll look at other properties. Do they sell? What do they sell for? It’s called testing for a reason. You’re using reasonable, logical, common-sense-driven things like,
“Would I buy this?” What you’re doing is practicing due diligence. “Would I buy the property? Is it priced correctly? Did I generally do this?” I’m not asking you in any way to do every single line on a $10,000 unit mailer. That’d be impossible. It would be too time-consuming.

I’m saying take five, eight, or in every APN scheme. Take five, ten, or maybe twenty if you’re new. You should be dancing throughout the process of testing for a reason. You should be dancing around the office saying, “If this comes back at this price, I am buying it. I’m going to get excited about calling the seller back and getting the deal done.”

I’m going to end this. Testing for reasons should take hours, not minutes, and not days.

The Land Investor’s Daily Routine: A Blueprint For Productivity And Success

Our topic is The Simple Daily Routine That Keeps Your Land Business Running Smoothly. I have a lot to say about this.

Go ahead.

Many people come to us at Land Academy. Jill and I teach a mastermind class once a year, sometimes twice a year, depending on the demand. A lot of people who end up in that class are making a couple of million bucks doing this, and we never know who they are. It’s always running in the background somewhere, or they’re coming from some other place on the internet, and they want to make 4 instead of 2.

Invariably, they have been very successful, usually before this, from an entrepreneurial standpoint. This time, they’re buying and selling real estate, houses, land, or whatever. We had a question from two people. One person was an occupational therapist. The other person was involved in agricultural-based commodities. They have an amazing chance at being successful at this. Is it because they know a lot about real estate? Absolutely not. I don’t care about that. It’s because they know how to run a business. They know how to process payroll. They know how to cash manage.

I can almost guarantee you they have some version of a calendar. I bet you a $1 they can, in this day and age, because they’re married, see the other person’s work calendar. They know where they are. It reduces a lot of the verbal communication and, hopefully, reduces it to the point where they’re checking 3 or 4 things if they have a question instead of asking their spouse where they are. They know where they are. You can see it on the calendar. The daily routine scenario should be happening in your life anyway. I hope you have one.

We talked about your high school experience and going to a class that you hate. That’s part of it. Probably half of what you do as a new entrepreneur, maybe more, you’re going to hate. Some of it, you’re going to loathe, and then there are going to be a couple of fun things. Hopefully, we have personal ways to deal with that.

Jill has a reward system. That’s not my favorite thing. I revel in stuff in my calendar, doing it, not thinking about it, and not having an emotion about it. That’s it. Jill and I put our social time together in the calendar. Usually around 3:00 or 4:00 on Friday, that’s our time to go horse around, meet our friends, and do stupid stuff.  An hour before that, I can hear her in her office. The lights are turning off and all of it. We know what’s going to happen. We have a routine.

I’ll say this, and then I’m sure Jill has some stuff to say, too. Whatever you’re doing in your life, I want you to know why. “Why am I working at the post office when I’m 28 years old?” Sit down with yourself and ask yourself why. “Why am I watching this sitcom on Thursday at 8:00 PM instead of X? Why is my kid failing math? Why do I hate this so much, but I love this other thing over here?”

If you love going out and drinking with your friends, maybe you should buy a bar. I’m not joking. If you hate doing your taxes,  then don’t be an accountant. We got done with doing our taxes. I personally can’t stand it, which is why I have somebody else in the end file the return for us. I do the numbers or the bookkeeping.

The Power Of “Why”: Defining Your Purpose For Greater Achievement

I love your why. That was great. That was good. The only thing I was going to add to the daily routine is clearly about the calendar. We got that out of the way. That’s who we are and how we roll. One thing that I do, and I don’t think you do this so I’m going to ask you, is I always go to bed the night before planning. I have a mental thing in my day. I look at my day. I think about how I’m going to get up and what’s first on my calendar. Maybe there’s nothing on my calendar. I always know that going to bed the night before. It helps me ease into that next morning because I know what’s going on. Do you do that or do you wake up every time and then look at the calendar?

On certain days when I know there’s stuff, like Thursday specifically. Thursday is a huge workday. I will check to see if there’s anything new, and I will make adjustments.

Do you look the night before or do you look Thursday morning?

The night before. On Thursday morning, it’s too late. If it’s Thursday morning, I’m in now. Whatever it says to do, I’m going to do it. This is such an important topic.

It’s all about the calendar. What’s your daily routine?

We both have a methodology. That’s my point. Have a method. If you have no real plan and you don’t know exactly what’s happening, why you’re doing something, and how it’s going to end, where you’re going to be when you’re 48 years old, or any of that, that’s not good. This is going to be a very huge adapting period for you to survive in a market like this.

I like this, too. It’s having a good calendar, and then I love the why because, for me, the why is going to say, “Am I doing something I should be working on? Why am I doing this tomorrow? Is it going to bring in more money, or is this a waste of my time?” That is huge.

The 'why' is going to say, 'Am I doing something I should be working on?' Share on X

If you’ve never done a mailer before and it says in your calendar, “It’s supposed to take a week. This is the amount. I have my W-2 job over here. I have my family over here. I’m supposed to spend eight hours doing this mailer and get it done. In fact, I’m going to get myself sixteen hours. I’m going to spread it out,” and then it’s four months later, that’s a huge fail.

The only reason that you’re not doing it is because something else came up. You should have a contingency plan for that. It’s like, “Here’s another gap of time. I’m not going to watch football. I’m going to  get it done.” That’s what this takes. People don’t want to talk about this topic. There are six people reading this still. This is the ugly truth about being successful.

I’ll end on this. I had a discussion with someone where I said, “You’re going to have to put your head down. This is going to be your life. If you could put your head down, not spend your profits, keep buying and selling property, and saying no to a lot of fun stuff for two years, wait until you see what happens at the end of that two years.”

You’ll have a system in place, and you’ll be done financially for the rest of your life.

It’s the ugly truth, but it’s what it takes.

Be organized. You should be able to answer yourself or anybody else, for the sake of argument, when the question comes up, “Why are you doing this right now? What are you doing?” You should have it roll off your tongue, “This is exactly why I’m doing this, and here’s the end. I’m doing a mailer right now. I’m cooking dinner because my kids are hungry.” That’s acceptable.

That’s fair. I love it.

Join us for a few more interesting land-related topics. You are not alone in your real estate ambition. We are Jack and Jill, information and inspiration to buy undervalued property.