It is a very special podcast show I have for you, the LAND Academy show. I am very lucky to be able to sit down and have a chat with our RV Life podcast host and LAND Academy member, two things here, Kimberly Crossland. Welcome, Kimberly. How are you?

Good. Thank you so much for having me on. It’s always great to be able to chat with you.

You also with Land Academy, you are wearing many other hats, it sounds like. You’re a Land Academy member, you’re a land investor, and you do RV life things. Tell me a little bit about what you have going on right now.

Yes, you’re right. It is a lot. It’s probably too much. I’ll get into how that too much inspired me to join Land Academy. I’ve been in business for myself for twelve years. I started as a copywriter and moved into business coaching. In the middle of that time, I had my children and so became pretty much a full-time mom, but then also had my side gigs, a couple of clients here and there just to keep the money coming in. Then 2020 hit.

In January of 2020, I had one client at the time. I had reduced down to just one client. I had this moment where I realized I couldn’t do it anymore. I’m too stressed out. I found myself driving my children home from preschool, hoping that they would go to sleep. I thought my priorities were out of whack here. Something’s got to give. This is not the way I want to have my motherhood be. I had this kind of out-of-body experience where I reached out and said, “I can’t do this anymore.” I told my client that.

My husband was very supportive at the time and he still is very supportive, but he understood and he agrees that my top priority is our children, of course. A couple of months later, it was March 2020, that’s when the world shut down and we went through the whole pandemic. At that moment, I realized that I was supposed to be here right now with my kids because they were not going to school and I could not have continued to do what I was doing.

Working with a consultancy and am just very busy all the time with my work. I had to have this very focused, quiet time, which when you have a two and a three-year-old at home, you don’t get that quiet and focused time. Long story short, I closed the doors on that business. I kind of reopened them under a different capacity, but that’s still, four years later, a work in progress of what that’s going to look like.

About a year ago, my husband and I were talking again, as we do every single day. He said, “A friend of mine has started this land investment thing. I think it sounds kind of fun.” We’re RVers. We’re not full-time RVers. We like to just go out and have fun and travel for longer distances and longer periods. We’re a little bit more than weekend warriors, but we’re not full-timers.

He thought, “This land investment deal could be something that we could bring in money while we’re on the road.” I thought, “Sure, go for it.” He joined and I kind of watched over his shoulders. He was doing things and started to get to know a little bit about the process and watch the videos. Then he sent out his first round of mailers and he said, “You might be getting some phone calls.”

I thought, “I’m ready for that. Get me on the phone, I’m fine.” I love talking to people. I did and I got to answer the phone. I got to talk to some people. We ended up finding that this was fun. We enjoyed it. At the same time, I was also launching a stationary line, Cruisin + Campfires, and I still have that line, and it all just kind of made sense.

As much as it felt like I was standing in a cash machine with all these opportunities and all these ideas that I was trying to pull down, I realized that I needed to grab the right ones. In doing so, I needed to make sure that they made sense for my family. I cannot go back to having that exhaustion, that burnout from being in the consultancy world or working as my boss but doing something that required me to be on 24 hours a day. It was too exhausting.

Finding this opportunity has been that settling that I get to make money, I get to have my passion, I get to have my purpose, but most of all, I get to be with my children and I don’t have to worry if they’re going to get sick and I’ve got to cancel a bunch of calls, or I don’t have to worry if they’re going to have to miss school or anything like that. We can hit the road, we can live our lives fully, and we can have such a good time doing so.

It sounds like, you said a stationary line, that is so cool. How fun is that? That and land flipping. Is everything that you kind of do now you could do from anywhere?

Yes, fully remote, which is lovely.

It’s just the school thing holding you back a little bit.

Don’t think for a second that we haven’t thought about road schooling and traveling the country.

I was waiting for that. I can see that, but years ago, I realized if I taught my kids, somebody’s going to die, that I’m not the best person. I don’t think I could do that. I have a huge respect for people who homeschool and do all that, but I know that I am not cut out for that.

I’m the same. I can see myself doing it, but it certainly, they love going to school. They love being with their friends. I love that quiet time when they’re at school where I can go and I can dig into data or I can draw and I can market my stationary line. I can have that time for myself too. It all works out for everybody.

You’re probably still young enough now though that if you wanted to take a little extra time and be out on the road a little bit and things like that. We’re not going to mess up their SATs.

Correct. My oldest turns eight, which is hard to believe, and my youngest is six. For the RV Life Entrepreneur Summit, we took them out of school for a whole week and brought them in person to the summit. They played on this dirt hill because my kids, taking them out to look at the land, put them in nature and they’re happy little children. They’ll go and find fun wherever they’re at. It’s just awesome. We’ve taken them out of school for a couple of weeks at a time. Bring along some homework. We sit and we’ll read together at the campfire. We’re happy to do that. They don’t fall behind and their SAT scores are going to be just fine.

Isn’t it great too, that all the things that you do that you can, it’s working around your life, not the opposite, which is what a lot of us traditionally do? Lord knows I did that for years and years. It was exhausting until you took a step out and realized that there’s a whole big world out there and I can make money and sometimes even more money doing other things. What’s been your financial land-flipping journey? I know you guys are early, you’re a year in. How has it gone so far with your deals?

Financial Land Flipping Journey

We’re profitable. What I love about Land Academy is that it is not like if you don’t go all in from day one, you’re never going to get your money back. That was not at all how we wanted to approach it because as you said, we’ve got our children, and my husband works full-time doing his thing already. We had that balance. This was going to be an added layer of just something fun that could also bring in some extra money. We took it slowly. We took our time getting into it and we have, as I said, made back the money. We’ve made $37,000. Which is not bad. Extra spending money, right?

How many deals was that?

That was only one deal.

Great. That’s even better. Imagine, Kimberly, if we do one of those a month.

Exactly. This is where we found that proof of concept and we got through a busy season. We said that this is where we’re going to continue. It makes sense financially and time-wise. Everything makes sense. Let’s continue down this path because this is where we can make money. It’s fun, by the way. We just sent out our second round of mailers and I’ve already got lots of really good phone calls.

Every single one of them has been fun for me to answer. I’m in talks right now. By the time this airs, I could be making more money. Just never know. This round, the reason why it took maybe a little bit longer for us is because Steven, my husband, also wanted us to go and have me do it from start to finish. In the beginning, the first time he did it, he did all the data stuff, and then I did the phone calls, and then we kind of came together at the end, and we both went and we signed all the deals.

That was a great approach to it, but for me to feel confident answering the calls, I wanted to kind of get my hands dirty in it as well and learn it. I think there’s so much value in it. I’ve been walking through step-by-step and I’ve had a lot of fun. Who knew working in Excel could be so fun? I did. I kind of nerd out on this stuff. This is cool. Scrolling all over Zillow and everything. We’ve had a good time doing it, but I took my time to get that second mailer out.

Then, of course, I’d ask him questions and it’s just a fun way to work together. You probably know because you do work with your spouse, but you never know how it’s going to be. Being able to have both of us be so involved in every element at the beginning of it, that way we can divide and conquer when we realize that this makes more sense for you to do. Then you become a really strong team, which has been cool for us to talk through and work through as well.

Husband And Wife Team

That’s so good. Are you kind of the head of the land business right now?

Yes, that’s exactly it. It’s been great.

This is all perfect. I think he planned this. I think he was brilliant. Here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to bring this in. I’m going to test it. I’m going to get her involved. I’ll get Kimberly to answer the phones. I’m going to show her we can make money and then light bulb moment, “I just made $37,000 off one deal. I see this works and now we can kind of pivot you.” That’s awesome.

It is. It was very genius of him.

Totally. This is the beginning of your journey in Land gals. I’m working on that this year. There are so many strong women, look at us. You’re a perfect example of strong female land investors who are having these light bulb moments in our space. I love it. I’m going to argue, I’ll tell you, again, kudos to your Steven because we women make very different decisions. I know that we look at data differently and we look at these deals when they come back differently. I think that sometimes we are a little more subjective.

I’m careful. Now, even more than 15 years ago, I look at these deals looking for something wrong with them. If I’m doing it, I feel great about it. Then out of my way, it’s going to be a good deal. That’s so cool. I think a lot of women use different things that we look at and we can go into that another time. It’s so interesting. I love that. What a great transition for you guys. Can he take orders from you? What roles have you left with him at this point in your land business?

Can he take orders from me? I like that question. No, he cannot, but that’s okay. The way that we approach it. For example, yesterday, I got a phone call from a very kind man and he said, “I got your letter in the mail. I’m interested.” Of course, there’s always price negotiation. That’s just par for the course.

We weren’t that far off. I’ll get all that data. My husband will look it over and then we’ll say, “It’s time for the mailers to go out.” Then I’ll get the phone calls. I’ll talk to the people. If there’s something that makes me think, “This could make sense.” Then I’ll hand it over to him, he’ll look it over, he’ll run the numbers and he’ll say, “I’m noticing this and maybe it doesn’t make as much sense, or let’s come back with this offer and then I’ll look at it again.”

We’re very collaborative on that piece. I’ll be the communicator. I don’t love the phone but I don’t mind it in these situations. He’ll relay and converse with me on that and we’ll decide together yes or no on a deal. I’m the one that’s carrying that part of the business. It is good to have him though. I appreciate being able to say, “This came in and this is a good deal.” I’ll tell you, I don’t know if you’re familiar with the Enneagram, but it’s like a personality test.

I’m seven, what are you?

I’m a two. I’m a people pleaser. Yesterday when I got this call from this very kind person, he was just wonderful. We chatted for a long time. When I got the call, I thought that I wanted to do this because I just wanted to work with him. I want to be a people pleaser. My husband is a five Wing seven. He was more practical about it. He didn’t have that emotional investment involved.

I’m going to give the guy a call back today and we’ll continue the negotiation process. I have a little bit more of the data side of it for my husband. I feel like I know that you’re right. Going into it, I can see these numbers and how we’re approaching this a little bit differently. He helps keep me grounded from those emotional decisions at times.

When you’re hearing these stories, some people I’ve talked to people who just became grandparents and they were excited about selling their land because where they had thought they were going to build, now they don’t want to because they want to be close to their family and I understand that. I just love hearing those stories. He helps to kind of keep the emotions out of the transaction a little bit. We can make smart deals for ourselves, but also be very strategic about how we’re moving forward and do so with kindness, humanity, and empathy as well. It’s a really good match made in heaven, I think.

You got really good things there. One, using each other’s other pair of eyes, especially when you come into new areas and you’re learning the area. I’m sure after 4, 5, or 6 deals, you’ll say, “I know this part of the county. I know that part of the county. I know this part of the county.” You’re going to already be able to make a decision. You’ll probably say, “I just want to confirm what I’m thinking is true. Make sure I’m not missing anything.” That’s awesome.

The second thing is that building a relationship with these sellers is so critical. That’s one of the things too, that I think we women do well. First of all, when you answer the phone and you’re in a good mood and you’re happy and you have a sweet voice, it’s really hard for people to get mad at you for sending them this offer. It’s kind of funny.

I’m sure you probably had those. You could just tell. You pick up the phone and say, “This, this is Jill of Land companies or something.” All of a sudden they’re tripping over their stuff because they were ready to let me have it. They’re thinking, “I can’t scream at this person.” It takes all the weight off their sails. I tell everybody, you’re doing it perfectly.

Having that relationship, Kimberly, it’s going to make every single one of these people want to sell to you. Period. I don’t care who they’ve talked to, or what’s going on, even if they offered more, you are pleasant and easy to talk to, and you’re helping them solve this problem. It sounds like by nature, you’re probably letting them know, “This is going to be easy, don’t even worry about it.” “I know what to do.” “I’ll take care of everything and make sure you get paid exactly what we agreed on.” That’s huge.

Relationship-Building

The deal that we did, that was, there was a time when I don’t want to say we lost contact with the seller, but there had been a few extra days that had gone by and my husband said, “Do you mind reaching out to him and just making sure things are OK? We’re still on track.” I said, “Absolutely.” I called and the guy could not have been nicer. He said, “My goodness, I’m so glad that you called. I’ve been meaning to get in touch with you.”

It was that instant like there was no animosity or anything. It is that relationship building. I didn’t call and say, “Where’s that?” “Where are you?” “Why have you got us this paperwork?” I called him and just said that I wanted to check-in. “Is there something that you need from me so that we can continue the process?” He said, “My goodness, no, I just needed this phone call. Thank you for reaching out.”

He was just so nice and it was a lot smoother than you might think. Now, I have worked in customer service before starting my own business. Obviously, when you’re in your own business, you’re always in customer service, but I’ve had some really bad experiences with people in customer service and I’ve not experienced that here.

When you're in your own business, you're still always in customer service. Share on X

Even when we’ve got the so-called hate calls, even when people say, “This is way too low, I’m pretty sure you left off a zero.” I didn’t leave off a zero, but okay. Those kinds of things, people aren’t as angry when upset, because it’s just like you said when they hear somebody on the other end, female or male, it doesn’t matter as long as it’s a real person who’s ready to just build that relationship and can speak to you like a human.

Now they’ll say, “You’re not going to send me in circles.” I can just tell you no, or I can just tell you yes, and we can talk through it. It suddenly just feels different. I’ve seen that instant defusal of people when they’re like you said, they call and they’re ready to get all feisty and they’ll say, “I can’t.” There’s no reason to.

Exactly. That’s it. I just speak to them like it’s my brother, my mom, or my grandparents. That’s all anybody wants. If there’s a deal to be made, let’s do it. If there’s not and you’re never going to sell, I respect that. I’m not here to talk about anything. Thanks for letting me know and I wish you all the best.

Exactly. It’s just that easy.

Enneagram

The third thing was the enneagram. I am so laughing at that because I found that, I want to say, three or four years ago, I had a girlfriend that turned me onto it. I went and got the book before I took the test. I think the book I read is The Road Back to You, I want to say. I went into it, you read it, starts with the one, it goes all the way through. I thought I knew what I was.

I’m this, I know it, I can tell. My dad, I think, was one, a perfectionist. I tend to have neat piles and neat things kind of organized and a little bit perfect, “Please don’t eat food in my car.” Some cars, yes, some cars, no, or what comes in the car goes out of the car. I’m that kind of a person too. I thought that’s what it was. Then I took the test and I’m not that at all. I’m a seven.

I know that makes sense and then I learned about the wings and all that. I started relaying that to Jack right before one of our early career path sessions. He asked, “What is this? What are you talking about?” He’s never into any of this stuff. This is not him. It’s kind of weird. It’s a little touchy-feely, he goes there, but not that far.

He said, “I’ll take the test.” I replied, “You should.” He took the test and he’s in. We started from that point on every single person’s career path, we pay for and make them take the test. It is so funny for everyone to see you think but you’re not always that way. When you read up about it, it just all makes so much sense.

For me, I love it. We coach about that in the early sessions of Career Path because it is important to know and understand who you are, who you’re working with, and who you’re dealing with because you can’t square peg and round hole this. You need to know who you are. You accept what you’re good at, and what you’re not good at. It’s okay, and it helps you lean into what you need, even for your business, not just life, not just a partner, but all of that too.

It is so important to really know and understand who you are and who you're working with and who you're dealing with, because you can't square peg and round hold us. Share on X

I love that you brought that up. It’s so funny. We all know what we are right away now. It’s so good. It’s funny sometimes because usually, it’s week two in a career path that we share with all of us and like the very first career path, I swear all but one person was an eight. It was the funniest thing. There were a lot of Jacks running around there.

The group we have right now, it’s more communication people. This particular career path we’re in right now, we’re wrapping up number nine next week, is mostly women, which is cool. I love seeing that pivot, but it’s such a good fun thing. I’m glad you did. Did you make your husband take it? By the way, he’s a five, you said?

Yes, he’s a five and he’s a lot like your husband. He was not so into this but then that one, he did take it because I forgot the name of the book now, but a friend gave me a book where it’s like illustrations of each of the different enneagrams. It’s a cool book. I asked him to take it and then I showed him what that means for him. He said, “I can see that.” It’s helpful. It’s been a little while since I’ve looked into it specifically for him.

I know I’m a people-pleaser, but I’m also a little bit of a perfectionist. it all just bleeds together but also it’s important to know because like you were saying, I love that you guys do this in Career Path if I was not aware of my people-pleasing tendencies and my abilities to so quickly get emotionally invested in people’s stories, I might not be as easy to hand over these deals to my husband and say, “Can you put your eyes on these?” “Can you help me discern if this is a yes or no?”

Especially in the beginning stages. It’s good to have that self-awareness like you said because now you know how to approach your business and you’re not shy about it. You can just say, “This is just how I am and it’s okay but also here’s how we can make sure it doesn’t stand in my way of success, but also I can use my unique abilities to amplify my success.”

You’re a two? You can walk in and say, “My inner two’s coming out. I need you to look at this. Make sure I didn’t miss anything. I need your five. These two need your five.”

This is why we work.

He’s the eight, I’m the seven. All I want to do is go have fun. How quickly can we get through this and go have fun? Bless his heart when we have important weekly partner meetings and he has learned to try to sound bite things and deliver them so my eyes don’t gloss over. He’s very good at saying, “I can tell I just lost you.” I’ll say, “Yes, you’re right.”

That’s good. It’s all about the awareness.

Flipping On The Road

Totally, good. Flipping Land, on the road, and with kids. How long can you guys take off? I know you took a week off. Do you have goals to take a month off this summer? I know a lot of people here want to hear about the remote awesomeness of land flipping because you can do it from anywhere. How do you guys do that?

We did just take several weeks off. It was in late September or early October 2023. I’ll tell you, the only problem that we had was we were driving through these gorgeous areas and you just started seeing, “There’s lots of land here.” Look at this. It’s both a blessing and a curse in a way because you’re seeing new areas and now you’re familiar with them.

To your point earlier, when you do get those phone calls and you’re more familiar with the area, you can say, “That might not be exactly where we think that we can resell.” Or you can say, “This is a hot market and I have the data to prove it, but I can also visualize it.” Being able to talk through it or sell it makes it just so much easier. There’s that. Then if you’re driving through beautiful areas and you just want to hold on to all the land, that can be problematic.

Exactly, “I don’t know if I can sell it.” You can do that.

That was fun and easy but we’re gathering up the zip codes. Then you go back and yes, you can bring your computer along with you but you don’t have to have a huge setup with massive screens. You don’t have to have printers and all these computers. We already all have our cell phones. We already have that in our pocket.

You have to have that and then if you have your laptop. You can just start opening up all the files that you give in Land Academy and just start crunching the numbers, working through all the different tests. It is pretty simple. It doesn’t have to take as long. In the beginning, it took me a little bit longer because I wanted to make sure I was doing it all right.

I wanted to learn and play around a little bit just because I was having fun in Excel. That was a me thing. It was just a good way to get to know what you’re doing. Once you have it down, it can go quickly. You’ve got the zip codes. If you go and confirm that this is the right market and this passes the test, then you can go and start pulling the data and working it at your leisure.

Most recently we went to Utah for a week, and we’re sitting at this particular campground. We’re sitting there, our camp spot just happened to back up to a ton of dirt and hills. It was a path for people to walk their dogs. We had next door to us, several neighbors that had kids. Our kids are playing with their kids and we can just sit back. We can see our children. We’re there. We’re present with them.

If they need water, we’ll yell at them to get water breaks, but we can also be there, just us, and we can talk and we have an internet connection and we can do what we want to do as well. Gorgeous balance of being able to work when you feel like working and you can also close it up when you don’t feel like working.

I didn’t know that I was a land person. I’ve always loved it, but until I got into this, I realized that I was a land nut. I do love it. I’ll go out and I want to be, I just want to be out there and exploring. We had a street bike and now I know this is not cutting it. We’re starting to go into some areas where I just can’t go. We need some real mountain bikes now. We have those two I can’t wait to get those out. Yes, they are a little bit Pelvicist. I’m very excited because I want to get there and wherever I’m going.

That’s your Enneagram seven there.

It is, exactly. Do you have any tips for anybody who’s thinking about taking a leap and doing something like you guys are doing?

The first tip I would say would be, if you are doing this as a duo, a partnership of any kind, make sure that you both go through the full process. It’s beneficial. It doesn’t mean you’re going to have to stay there forever, but just understanding it helps you speak better when you’re answering the phone. You don’t have to have all the details about all the thousands of mailers that you send out.

Of course, that’s why we have it on the screen for us, but just understanding where to look in that file, understanding what someone is talking about, and those questions to ask, and what you’re looking for as you’re doing your due diligence is valuable. I’ve loved that, even though we’ve taken kind of the slower role into it, we’ve done that intentionally, because we know that this is just how we approach things.

We like to get to know them well. We can go as quickly as we want after that. That’s where we’re at. We’re ready to up that hockey stick curve. We’ve been level, steady Eddie at the beginning because we want to both get to know the entire process, start to finish. Then up we go. I also, I’m not great like you are at piles and like organization.

I am great at digital organization. We use Airtable, also using Excel. Having that as a way that you can go and track what conversations you’re having, especially because with every single mailer, you’re going to get multiple phone calls. Being able to lean into, “This is what we talked about.” Every single time I have a conversation with someone, I will go and write down a few of those details so that I know that if that person calls me back, I can ask about the grandchildren that they’re going to visit.

Or I can ask how was the weather in Alaska. They’re in Alaska but they have land in Arizona. They don’t want to come back. They want to stay in Alaska, go figure. I’m from Arizona, and of course, I like Arizona, but being able to have those conversations to your point about the relationship building, if you can see that they’re calling or you know that you’re about to call them back and you can just pull that up and have that little personal tidbit.

It warms up the conversation and makes it easier for you to get that yes, but also just makes it feel more fun. The whole deal just feels a little bit more fun. You can let your hair down a little bit. As buzzy of a word as this is, I am all about authenticity and I feel better showing up when I can just show up as me. That helps me put my guard down too in some of these conversations that can feel very data-heavy and rigid at times, it makes it so it doesn’t feel like that anymore.

Just being able to squirrel away, setting yourself up in the beginning, it’s going to go so far to having that relationship building down the road. Finally, I would say just to have fun with it, because it is more fun than you might think when you think about rows and columns. After all, you’re now able to see these places on a map. You can, if you’re like us, go drive the areas and say, “Look at this. This is where we just drove close to where we sold that piece of land.” We went there a couple of months ago and looked at the area, and it was just fun to see because you’ve got some of that emotional investment in it now.

Setting yourself up in the beginning is going to go so far to having that relationship building down the road. Share on X

Even if you never put your feet on the ground there, you talked about it, you looked at pictures, you had a photographer out there, and you’ve been through those steps. It’s fun, it adds some color to your travels, and it just makes it more exciting. Of course, you are going to want to go and buy the land for yourself because it’s just so fun. That’s a good problem to have.

It’s funny. That’s more Jack than me. It’s hilarious. He has a couple of properties that he fell in love with. I sold them, and he said, “What did you do? I said, “You told me, this is what we do. I can get you another one. I can buy more. It’s okay.” That is so cool. Thank you so much for joining me, sharing your experience, your knowledge, and your advice for people looking at doing something similar. Where can folks find you and follow you on your journey? You’re not my normal guest. You have your other great stuff going on.

Thank you. Come over and say hi to me on Instagram. I’m @Kimberly.Crossland. Just my name with a period in between. I’m also at Cruisin + Campfires on Instagram and I’ve got Roadpreneur.com as my website. I’ve got a newsletter where I just talk about what I’m doing in the world. I also have CruisinAndCampfire.com, which is my stationary line for RVers specifically.

Thank you again. I can’t wait to hear, Kimberly, about your next deal number two, deal number ten, and deal number 200. I’m excited to see what’s coming. You have a great foundation and obviously, you started with a bang. I can’t wait to hear how that goes. Thanks. Take care.

Thank you so much.