Land Development & Time Freedom with Matt James

Brandon Parker00:00Welcome to the Legends of Land podcast today, my friends. We have Matthew James LandTheDev, Matt on Twitter. You've probably seen him walking around some of his development projects, and I'm excited for this conversation with Matt today. Matt, how are you doing?

Matt James00:15Hey. I'm great. Thanks for having me. Yeah. Absolutely.

Brandon Parker00:19So just getting started here. In your Twitter bio, it says that some of your main interests are land, finance, and time freedom. What sticks out to you about those things?

Matt James00:28I think everything is centered around time freedom. I remember about eight years ago, I was 26, and I was working, like, eighty hours a week and made a very conscious decision. That wasn't the life I wanted to leave for the rest of my life. And more or less just made a very absolute decision that everything else that I did in the workspace, no matter what it was, would be directed towards early retirement and spending my time how I want to. Retirement's a loaded term. Don't necessarily mean not working, but more getting to that point where I can make the decision to spend my time how I want.

Matt James01:01That's what's behind time freedom, and everything else follows from that.

Brandon Parker01:06And

Matt James01:07was there some sort of thing that happened in your life where you just were fed up with work and you're like, I have to find a way to enjoy what I'm doing? Or what was that? Was there a decision point there? Or was it just naturally built up over time? I think it was built up over time. So at the time, I used to work for a very large, one of the largest commercial builders on the planet, actually. I was working on Disney projects for this general contractor. It's not Disney itself. It was... I was... I worked for this general contractor that builds part of the theme park. Right? So I was on Avatar Land.

Matt James01:37I was on an expansion of Animal Kingdom in Orlando doing resorts, all kinds of stuff for Universal and for Disney. And those kind of jobs require a lot. And I made it to project manager on Coronado Springs, Destino Tower. If you're not familiar with that, if you watched the NBA in 2020 when they were in the bubble and all the NBA guys had to stay in a resort, it was in Destino Tower. So that was my my grand climbing up the ladder up to managing that tower with several other folks.

Matt James02:09And it got very stressful. It was very, very time consuming, not necessarily from the forty, forty five, fifty hours a week, but leaving the house at five, 05:30 in the morning, leaving work at seven, 07:30. And the culture wasn't necessarily something that I saw myself in for the long the long haul. And so from there, I I realized that I wanted to figure out how to make passive income. And then naturally, like most people, I know everybody always has the same beginnings that either go to Robert Kiyosaki's book or Bigger Pockets or whatever it was.

Matt James02:46And for me, it was Bigger Pockets. I remember finding one of those, like, silly how to articles, and there was, like, 10 ways to make income on the side. And one of them was passive income through real estate, and then never looked back. So devoured everything on Bigger Pockets, started learning about flipping wholesaling homes, got very heavy into that before I actually found my way to land.

Brandon Parker03:07Actually, it's something you mentioned on your Twitter, you said you got very heavy into flipping wholesaling homes for eighteen months, and it just burns you out didn't get you where you want to go. Talk about that journey versus what land flipping looks like and the difference between those two.

Matt James03:24Yeah, sure. A little more context on the background to get there. When I left that job, I actually ended up going to a land development job for a few years. And the land development job, I was learning all about how to manage major subdivisions for the biggest builders in the nation, Doctor Horton, Pulte Lennar, KB Homes, all these big builders. And my job was basically, alright, We have permits to go from a 100 acres pine forest to a fully developed subdivision that then gets built on by these guys. So learning that side of it for three years in the background, what I was doing was I had a lot more time because now I was actually working forty hours a week, and I wasn't used to that.

Matt James04:05And my wife was a stay at home mom. So my... We had our first child, and that was the catalyst for quitting my job that had a lot of hours to one that had forty hours was the baby was on the way and I didn't want to be a father that was only around on the weekends. So as I went to that job, being able to be a father and do forty hours a week, I had a lot of time on my hands outside of that. And I ended up, you know, learning how to wholesale and and flip homes. And so what ended up happening was during that time, I I started making a lot of money on the side and somehow came up with, the idea that making, like, $80 in four months would extrapolate into grand riches.

Matt James04:49So I ended up quitting my job in land development, going into flipping homes, wholesaling homes, taking the shot at some, new construction. And that actually ended up going well financially simply because you always make your money on the front end, right, just like you do in land. And the whole reason why I ended up stopping that was I had a second child on the way. I pushed the envelope a little too far where I wanted to be with how much I was working. And there were some also some other factors in there with market timing and all kinds of stuff.

Matt James05:23And homes just like a... They're very... It's a very intricate animal compared to land. So going back to the original question compared to land. Homes, you need to know, you know, what the year the the roof is, the year of the AC, the condition of the plumbing. Do you have aluminum wiring to the panel? Is the panel Florida Pacific, which needs to be replaced? There's all these little intricacies that you have to know, like the back of your hand. In land, it's three things. You have access, you have wetlands. If there's flood plains, it's just not as desirable, but not a big deal.

Matt James05:55There's like nothing to it. Is it well in septic? Or is there utilities in the right of way? And just the simplicity of it just blew my mind. The other component to it just... So I guess that's one. The simplicity was incredible. Two was you're dealing with a demographic that they don't like dealing with realtors. They don't like dealing with MLS listings in the 55, 60 plus a lot of the time. So they welcome, for example, cold calls or mail. Right?

Matt James06:25They welcome these marketing strategies a lot more than folks with homes do because when it comes to homes, a lot of the times you don't have the age range varies. Right? Demographics vary all over the place. Whereas with land, most of the time, the demographic is... Tends to be a lot older when they're sitting on land for twenty years and they're like, alright, time to sell it. I'm ready to retire. I never built that home I wanted to build. So that was two. And then three was the competition was nowhere near as fierce as it is in homes.

Matt James07:00There's so much more pie in land. And it's funny, I juggle to myself sometimes when I hear new land investors talk about, oh, the market's so competitive. Was like, if you haven't done homes, you have no idea. I'll never say that again. You mean, you probably in homes, you probably have to spend, like, $12 to make 15. And, like, in land, you can spend $5 and make 50. It's not comparable at all. And so that was the third one that kind of blew me away. And then fourth one that really stuck out to me was just earnest money.

Matt James07:30That just is such a minor detail, but how in land, it's not normalized to require earnest money on contracts. Just again, just blew my mind. I was like, how is this possible? Yeah, I guess long story short, same type of business, right? Homes, it's all marketing, but you just have to have a stronger, not a stronger, you have to have a more in-depth knowledge to really succeed in that realm. Same marketing Land just doesn't require as much unless, of course, you're trying to expand multiple states and all kinds of stuff.

Matt James08:01And each state, each region has their own little nuances. But for example, myself, I'm a Florida guy. I tried going out one time to North Carolina, did not enjoy that experience whatsoever. So I stick to Florida and I know what I'm doing like the back of my hand all throughout Florida. So yeah, it's a it's a no brainer. I'm surprised that it hasn't taken off quicker from people they probably just don't know. But it's been fun for the last year.

Brandon Parker08:26Think that people don't realize that it's... That you can do the same thing with land.

Matt James08:32I don't think people think the market is big enough. It seems like such a little niche, like buying and selling land. If you say you're a real estate agent or a house flipper, everyone gets it. You say I'm a land investor or I flip land. People are like, what is that? I don't even get it. It's not part of the cultural zeitgeist almost. Like real estate doesn't mean land to a lot of people, which is funny. Yeah. There's always that taboo of if you buy land, you have to sit on it for ten years before you can actually make a profit on it. And so it's a road has to come through to develop it, to increase the value, which is not the case at all.

Matt James09:05There are a lot of plays like that, but that's not what land investors are after. And I guess I should be thankful for that taboo, simply because it allows us to do what we do.

Brandon Parker09:15Exactly. And I think that's probably a lot of it too, is that there's no real clear path to like getting rent off of land. People see a house, people pay you rent. And that's how you make money. It's just like clicks a little bit better when you just have a piece of dead land there. It takes... I shouldn't say dead land, but a piece of land there, it takes some creativity of how am I going to monetize this? You're gonna flip value add. Am I gonna... Who knows? That's what I think that's maybe some of the mental block for people. I came from real estate to when I was a real estate agent and flipped houses and did full rehabs, like full gutting houses and going in and redoing them.

Brandon Parker09:52It's just, like you said, a thousand variables. You have roofs or you have pest inspections. I

Matt James10:03mean, we margins are always so thin. And your if you're trying to get somebody off Google, they're gonna charge you an arm and a leg, which ends up obliterating your margin. So then I'm always hunting for new guys at Home Depot or whatever it is. And those are the guys that show up but only do 97% of the job, and then they never show up to finish the last 3%. So then you're out there trying to figure out how to get it done.

Brandon Parker10:25Oh, man. It's a nightmare. Yeah. I think you gotta be able to swing a hammer to fill in those gaps for sure. Yeah. I was lucky to have a buddy with a crew. And so, like, we were just out there putting in serious work. It was actually fun, but you can't do that. It's not sustainable, you know? Yeah.

Matt James10:43It's hard to leverage your time in that area.

Brandon Parker10:45Oh, 100%. Yeah. So you talked about working on bigger development deals. Talk about some big lessons maybe that you learned on doing 100 acre, projects for build big home builders and how... What are some of the main keys that overlap into what you're doing now?

Matt James11:03Yeah. Sure. So with my full time job being a land development manager for these really large projects, so I have probably the biggest subdivision development right now that I'm managing over, it's in Apopka, Florida, just... It's just North of Orlando. And it's about... It's a 100 homes, and there's some three story apartment buildings, two different phases of that. So I'm out there. I have some videos as well on on Twitter or X, I should say, walking around that development.

Matt James11:34And a lot of the experience that I have from doing that job, what serves me the best and what I do now on my side hustle is the sense of urgency, I would say. Of course, there's just knowledge around land, but it doesn't necessarily translate so much. It's translating knowledge from the... I don't know if this will come off the right way, but knowledge from, like, the NBAs, being on a high school basketball team, for example. The stuff that I'm handling on day to day basis with my job is so far out there.

Matt James12:06The paperwork, all that kind of stuff doesn't necessarily translate to what I do for land flipping and whatnot. It's more so the mentality, which I can demonstrate with a good example from the first land flip I ever did. I marketed to Polk County here in Florida. And I think I sent 6,000 mailers out. This was a year ago, almost exactly. And that mailer, I probably got, I don't know, out of 6,000, I got half a percent response to maybe 30 responses. The one deal came back where my mail, it was funny.

Matt James12:38It actually offered, like, 63,000. And the guy talked himself down. He's... I don't know why he had this figure in his mind, but he basically said, I will give you this parcel for... What was it? He was like, I'll give you this parcel for 48. He, like, instantly took off, like, $15,000. And I was like... And so we got it signed. And the funny thing is looking back, he he probably thought he was like, oh, I'm getting this sucker because there's a gas easement that ran through the property.

Matt James13:10And I don't think he was able to do anything with the parcel simply because, one, the gas easement, but, two, there was four... It was 4.98 acres, and the zoning required five acres to be buildable. So he probably ran into an issue where he was like, this isn't even buildable land. I'm gonna get $50,000 for my land because this sucker doesn't realize it. So during due diligence and because of my my job, actually... So actually, two things. One, the sense of urgency, but two would be the networking connections I have in Florida.

Matt James13:41That's part of the reason why I stick to Florida is I... Doing what I do, I I talk to a lot of people in planning and zoning departments. So I work with planning and zoning in Polk County extensively for my day to day job. So I called the head guy. Right? Instead of going to, like, the typical old person that picks up the phone as the technician that'll help you answer some questions and stuff, I know the director. So I called the director. I said, hey. Is there anything you can do to help me out with this? And he's like, yeah. Let me take a quick look. And he found that it was actually a vested of record. So, basically, it was still eligible to be built, but it required a letter from the county.

Matt James14:13And usually, you have to pay, like, the $250. They have to give you a formal thing. You have to wait three weeks. He just sent me a quick email and said, hey. You're good to go. It's a vested lot of record, blah, blah, blah, blah. So that was awesome. And then I was like, oh, it's buildable. And then I found the survey on the property records. And the survey was like directly off to the side. It was way, it was perfect. It was probably like four and a half acres rebuildable. And it's like a half an acre. So it was not an issue at all. And that was one where in the beginning, I saw I had the funds required to take it down myself.

Matt James14:45And I really wanted to because I had high conviction in it. And my wife wouldn't let me. She wanted more of the proof of concept for sure. And I think a lot of us investors run into that. So I said, alright, no problem. And at the time, I was very heavily involved in Pete Reese's forum on school, the land conquest. And so I I was actually his first full cycle funding where he funded it and it closed. So he funded it for me. We did the half split on that. But going back to the original question of what translates from my original job, it's that always pushing, always finding those answers when it comes to dealing with my site contractors.

Matt James15:22Right? I never take their answers at immediate face value. It's always pushing to find that next answer. Get somebody who's gonna say yes, figure out a way around it, don't give up. There's a lot of just testimony out there on all different kinds of land forums of how people found another way. They gave up. The contract was canceled. They somehow figured out how to get it done. They got it done. And I think that's probably one of the big gaps that I see with folks that come in. Sometimes when you haven't had a lot of experience in life with just persevering through no matter what and just figuring it out no matter what and having that mentality, it's really easy to...

Matt James15:56Just gonna throw in the towel on this one, throw in the towel on that one. Contract's canceled. You kinda really have to have that grit to to make it as an entrepreneur. So I think that experience from just being a project manager day to day really translates well to having that grit on the entrepreneurial side. And then, yeah, the second one, my second answer would be the networking connections. Absolutely. Because that definitely helped on my first deal. Yeah.

Brandon Parker16:19I can see that networking, actually, a lot of people, developers I've talked to talk about their knowing people in the county or knowing the county and how it operates really well. What would you say to someone maybe who is has a deal, a possible subdivision, or maybe they need to work with the county on something, but they're unfamiliar? What's the path to just continue to work on that and make it happen?

Matt James16:41Yeah, sure. So if we're... I wanna make sure it's as specific as possible for anybody watching this. I'd probably say specific to minor subdivisions, because major subdivisions would be a whole other beast, right? So not looking at it as a land flip, looking at it as something that you've vetted the county rec... Or sorry, the county muni code. So usually, step one on a minor subdivision, you're going through the land development code, and you're checking if there's a section for minor subdivisions. And they're usually always... They might call it something different. Right? But they'll usually tell you how many lots you can split one greater parcel, and you have to usually meet a couple different requirements.

Matt James17:13First one being minimum lot size and minimum... And second one being minimum road frontage. And then beyond that, it starts getting a little nuance. But those are really the main two. So as long as you meet all that kind of stuff and you're looking at it, first step is call your planning and zoning department. Hands down. Always. You're gonna get the technician that's on call. And usually, the way I go about that is I'll have the muni code up. I'll have the section there, and I'll just confirm a few things. Hey, can I do a flag lot? Because usually that's not written in that minor subdivision section of the muni code.

Matt James17:44So I might be able to squeeze an extra partial or something that doesn't have enough road frontage, but as a flag lot, it requires less road frontage. And just to to to define flag lot for people listening in case you don't know what a flag lot is, if you got a square, instead of splitting it and you only have enough road frontage to do two loss, right, so you split it down the middle of the survey, Instead, you might do two and then have a little skinny run on the side that opens up to a bigger parcel in the back. And so now you have three lots instead of two. And it looks like a flag because it's basically the pole, a little skinny easement, and then the bigger section in the back.

Matt James18:17So that's usually one of my top questions I'll ask you about flag lots and just working through that technician kind of forming that relationship. Because if it's something that you go through with, that you're going to make the purchase, it makes a lot of sense. You're going to be dealing with that department a lot. So just making sure you always got your best charismatic voice on and just being optimistic, happy, is that people can always sense a smile and how you speak, and it goes a long way. I find that a lot of folks will do a lot of favors for you without even knowing you just based on your tone, your tonality on a on a call.

Matt James18:52So, yeah, definitely calling, planning, and zoning first, getting really deep into that code, the muni code for that specific county, and also just leveraging knowledge online. So there's always forums out there. I mentioned Pete Reese's forum. X is a great place. There's a lot of folks there that are constantly talking about land, and it's not really even that big of a community. It's maybe, like, 10 to 15 of us. But everybody's got, like, thousands of followers. So that always stuck out to me is how going on there and and talking to the 10 or 15 folks that are out there.

Matt James19:24I get messages all the time asking me questions, and I'm always happy to answer whatever I can. There's a lot of people out there, and they're all very friendly and looking to help. So at the end of the day, we've only been doing this for a relatively short amount of time. I still identify as a newbie. When you're talking about the county and the planning department,

Brandon Parker19:41how much leeway or how much play do you think is in the answers they give how much they're willing to work with you? What's the difference between just looking at what's possible and just saying here's what's possible versus coming up with creative solutions with the county? How much extra

Matt James19:59is there in that? Yeah. Sure. So in minor subdivisions, I would say none. In major subdivisions, I would say a lot, Simply because the major subdivisions usually qualify under something called a PUD, planned urban development. And that is... You're working within the confines of zoning in major subdivisions, but there's a lot of politics involved in that. Alright? The neighbor may say, I've got an issue with this when they show up to the commission hearing. Now you gotta put a tan fence. This is a real example on one of my broadens. You gotta add a berm and landscaping and all kinds of stuff to appease the neighbors.

Matt James20:29The county may require that you save additional trees just because they want some existing trees, which creates issues for our grading when we're doing on-site. There's all kinds of stuff that you work through with the folks in the county. In major subdivisions, it becomes... Those relationships really come into play because on the really big projects, they're out there. Right? They're looking at everything. Whereas, like, when it comes to minor subdivisions and everything, you're just dealing with, like, a staff level, a technician, someone that's gonna help you understand the code. So it really is just that. It's per the code.

Matt James21:00So there's really no leeway when it comes to those minor subdivisions because it's just by the book stuff. It's not really, for lack of better words, not really big enough for them to really care that much about to do favors for anybody. So, yeah, it's minor subdividing really comes down to knowing what counties to pursue. 67 counties in Florida. I've called about 90% of those county offices to confirm and go through their muni code on exactly how many lots I can do, what road fund is required, all that kind of stuff.

Matt James21:34So I've learned what the best counties are and I target those. And that is probably one piece of information. I apologize to anybody listening to this that I won't share because that took me dozens and dozens of hours to find the best two counties in Florida. And I'll tell you that's the process. Right? I'll... Anybody who wants to do it, go and do it. But there are a couple counties in Florida that are just far outshine all the other counties and make minor subdivides a lot easier. And I'm working through my first one right now, which is pretty awesome.

Matt James22:05Bought it for $2.20. Got the survey. Just working through putting my plotting package together, which includes some calls to, the postmaster and a traffic engineer where I'm getting, like, an exemption letter from doing the traffic impact analysis. So there's some minor little things that you learn along the way. You just gotta take the action and roll with it. But it's... I bought it for $2.20, and once I split it, it's worth about probably 500. So that's a really good one. And because of that, I'm basically just all in on that county.

Matt James22:36I'm calling all those numbers myself as opposed to my team calling them because there's probably a couple million dollars hiding in that list.

Brandon Parker22:43That's interesting. Do you have any, obviously, you don't wanna talk about Florida, that's your stomping ground. What about states that are good targets for possible easy subdivides? People obviously can touch the counties within those.

Matt James22:57Yeah. Yeah. I can expand a little bit on Florida. Says I only do Florida. On Florida, it really is... I personally think it's the best state. I always hear a lot of people that say, I avoid Florida because it's so competitive. But it's competitive because the demand is unparalleled. There is no other state that's getting as much immigration in Florida. It's not even close. I think Texas is in second, and they're at, like, half of the immigration that that Florida's getting. So the demand is just my active days on market. And this is with rejecting offers.

Matt James23:28I was still making money. It's probably four months for anything I buy and put on the MLS. And that's because I'm waiting for, you know, a good offer. And so it's... And that's through the roughest part of the year, which we just passed now. We're going in q two, and q one is historically always the slowest kinda dead season, and I'm still averaging four months through everything. So I love Florida for that reason. I think the demand offsets any kind of competition. You just have to, you just gotta learn your area. You gotta really know what you're doing and know your backyard. But when it comes to minor subdivides, I think that process really applies to any state.

Matt James24:03Because if you just start kind of indiscriminately going after subdivides, you will have, I'm gonna go about this two ways. You can indiscriminately go after minor subdivides in states that tend to be very lax about their rules. Texas is the perfect example. Most minor subdividers are in Texas because it's a statewide regulation that allows you to be plot exempt at over 10 acres. So basically, don't have to worry about counting regulations over there. You just have to learn the nuances as to does this area qualify for additional water taps and stuff like that.

Matt James24:35Texas is its own animal, but when it comes to the regulation side, it's probably, it's the most lax in the country. So any subdivided course and all that kind of stuff, usually, it'll be based with a person teaching you what they've learned from doing it out in Texas. I've seen other investors that have had some success doing it in North Carolina, Alabama, Georgia, areas like that. But you're not doing the big 100 acre, 200 acres split into one or five acre lots or 10 acre lots and stuff like that.

Matt James25:07It's usually like a 50 acre, maybe a 70 acre, and you split it into three or four pieces because in those areas, you have a lot more topographical concern. And so you're... You tend to be following lines and you can only reasonably... You don't... Because of the topography, you don't really have the best road footage a lot of the time. It's not flat like Florida or flat like Texas where you have a bunch of squares everywhere. The roads are always meandering through the mountains. So, naturally, that reflected in the boundary lines. So you don't get those massive economies of scale of being able to split into a 100 different lots.

Matt James25:39But those areas tend to have lax regulations as well, where you can do 10 lots or whatever it is on something and they don't require much, but you have some additional requirements when it comes to percolation testing. Soils is massive in Southeast. That's... If you operate in Southeast, everything... That's like the great filter. Will it perk? That's the other reason why I love Florida. I don't worry about perk at all. I don't even think about it because Florida is sandy soils and there's a massive aquifer and I... You can get a well anywhere in Florida very easily.

Matt James26:10And all of that sand percolates incredibly well. The only time it doesn't is if you're a majority wetlands, but that's its own filter in itself. If you have a majority wetlands on the property, probably not a good property and people tend to avoid it. Yeah. I think it's just the same approach when it comes to minor subdivides. You call that planning and zoning department. You talk with the technician. You pull up the muni code. Usually, can just Google county name, blah blah blah state, muni code, land development code, or muni code. And on your top links, you'll end up finding that land development section for subdivisions.

Matt James26:41You can type in minor subdivision or whatever they call it and have that pulled up. Read it a few times through before you call planning and zoning department and figure out who has the most lax regulations. And a lot of the times that just comes down to having an Excel sheet and you're calling all those different counties and you're just trying to figure out what county allows you to split the most for the smallest piece of land without qualifying as a major subdivision. Right? You're trying to tow that threshold. But that's really the process anyway. It's just, you're going to get far better answers doing it in North Carolina.

Matt James27:16Right? Most counties there are like between seven to 12 parcels and up, and you still qualify as a minor subdivision. But in Florida, you can only split it once. We don't care if it's 100 acres. If you want be a minor subdivision, you can only have two fifties. That's it. Right? So Florida is really unfriendly when it comes to that stuff. So it takes, when I say dozens of hours to vet through every county in Florida, especially because a lot of times they don't pick up or this is going be any state, but they don't pick up. They don't know what you're talking about. And you got find another technician. It's a hassle. But once you do all the work, ends up being worth it.

Matt James27:46But yeah, that would be my my recommendation on what that process looks like, how you get started is you find the most lax counties, and then you specifically target for that. It's far and few between that I see larger minor subdivides come through a typical land flipping funnel. It's not unheard of. I've definitely seen guys with stuff like that, and I've had some potentials come through my system as well. But there's just... There's so much money in minor subdivides that it's well worth the effort to have it as its own stand alone marketing effort.

Brandon Parker28:17Do you think someone can build a business around just flipping and minor subdivides? Or do you think it's, if you were

Matt James28:24transitioning full time, it's necessary to look at those bigger ones, the larger ones, too? If I was going full time, that's a whole other conversation itself that I'd love to have. Why I still have a w two? That's probably my top question, I guess. But Let's talk about that. Yeah. Going into that last question. Looking at my operations specifically, land flipping, my marketing costs are probably... I'm not a massive operation by any means, but I'm definitely well established. I'm probably between, I don't know, 8 to 10,000 a month, call it, in marketing costs.

Matt James28:55And that's my full operation. That's everything. That's CRMs and all my cold callers. I have six cold callers in house, and right now I'm ramping that up. And we can go into marketing, preferred marketing strategies and all that kind of stuff. But covering all that, my land flipping business probably makes... At least covers that, but is trending towards doubling. 10,000... Let's say I'm spending a 100 or a 120. I'm probably profiting just as much over the year on that.

Matt James29:27So the minor sub divisor where the money is really at. And that's where we can expand on. People see all the best deals when it comes to what the grandeur, what gets talked about on online and on social media. And it's just, it's the Instagram effect. It's the the x effect. Everybody talks about their great deals or whatever it is. And that's a mistake I made when I was flipping homes, and I made $80 in four months and thought I quit my job and it would extrapolate. It doesn't really work that way. There's ebbs and flows, and you have to plan for that. Because December, for example, I literally had...

Matt James29:57Last December, I made a $100 off of land flipping. But then I had three months where nothing comes in, and now I have another 60 coming in this month. It's... That's just how the business works. And so it's a matter of just understanding that you're building a pipeline. And when it comes to land flipping and subdividing, you could absolutely just have a business focused on subdividing. I think that would probably be the leanest, cleanest way to operate if you have funds and you're trying to do this on the side. Land flipping is you're building a business.

Matt James30:28You're building a marketing business with employees if you really want to have something scaled to where you're making a $102,100 grand a month and more. I know guys are making way more than that. But they're in it full time, a lot of employees, and they're crushing it. We have an unprecedented opportunity here just due to the lack of competition. And I think doing both is a natural avenue for anyone who builds a landfloating business is to get into subdividing. But I also think there's a very possible route towards just doing minor subdividing as well.

Matt James30:58I've seen folks that are doing that in Texas, that's all they go after. But, yeah, I think I think both are very feasible. It just depends on your time constraints, which you can handle as a person.

Brandon Parker31:10Yeah. What do think about flipping as a standalone business, not even doing the minor subdivides?

Matt James31:16Absolutely possible. It's a lot more work, but you pick your poison. Where when I initially started out in landflopping, I said I wasn't gonna do anything under two acres. And that really helps me to this day. I've only done six landfills. That's it in a year. But those numbers that I was quoting with my marketing and how much I'm making, that's off of just six deals. And that's simply because two acres... I need to provide some context to this. Two acres and up in North Carolina doesn't make sense because two acres in North Carolina probably trades for $10.15 grand, maybe $20 or something depending where it's at.

Matt James31:50When you're in Florida, I had in December, I had a 1.25 acre parcel that I bought for 43 and I sold for one hundred and thirty ten days later. So it's your... The demand really affects your retail values. So when I say two acres and up, it's because I'm talking about retail values that average anywhere between... My my typical bread and butter is anything that retails between 75 to 150. So that's like the playground I play in. I try not to go under that simply because, as everybody says, same amount of work, same amount of effort, you're putting in the same amount of time and you're not reaping nearly as much.

Matt James32:25So I always think it's a fallacy when I see folks that are focusing on these counties that just have tons of vacant land all over the place. And each one is a quarter acre that trades infill, vacant land infill that trades out 6,000, and they're trying to buy it for Dash at 2,000 and sell it for... I think that's a complete waste of time unless you have a... Unless you like funds. If you like funds, and that's the only way you can get started, then a 100%. Crush it. But once you start building up funds, I would absolutely make an effort towards marketing towards bigger properties. As a standalone business, absolutely, again, we...

Matt James32:57There's not an insane amount of competition in this. You just have to have that entrepreneurial mindset and you have to be willing to constantly iterate, right? If you set up a system and you have an operation in place, every single week, every two weeks, whatever it is, you're always iterating, you're always iterating, you're always trying to tweak and get better and get better. And that's just the nature of the beast.

Brandon Parker33:16And you mentioned if someone doesn't have funds, there's also a lot of money out there for if you have a good deal, like you'd mentioned partner with Pete program, and there's plenty of places to get money. Do you think a avenue for someone to just get started is look for those $100,000 flips and if they find one partner?

Matt James33:36Absolutely. With the partner with the program, you don't even have to worry about like the disposition side And just to define dispositions for any new investors, it's basically your selling side. Right? It's a two part business. You have acquisitions, you have dispositions, acquisitions, everything to acquire the property. Your marketing, your acquisitions manager or yourself, who's actually having a call with the seller and then routing everything through title, taking everything down. But then the back end, once you actually have that in your inventory and actually selling it, listing it, putting it on Facebook marketplace, whatever it is, whatever avenues you're using to sell the property, that's your disposition side.

Matt James34:08The partner with Pete program, he actually... Pete Rees, he handles all of that. So he has realtors everywhere. And he handles getting them paid for photos and all that kind of stuff and handles all of the negotiations and everything. So you're just focusing on acquisitions. I think it's a great program. I always recommend it because that's how I started on my first one. But after you build up some momentum, got cash, you can meet with private lenders, that's a whole new avenue that can really put some rocket fuel on your business. And not being afraid to put yourself out there to meet those people because they won't just pop into your lap.

Matt James34:40Right? If you start looking for private money on Google, you're gonna get a million links to these funds that aren't really what you're looking for. These are land specific private lenders that on average can lend out at 2% a month. So if you're buying a property for 30,000, let's say, there might be a $500 fee for all the paperwork and stuff, and then you're paying $600 a month. And if you have an average six month hold time before you expect to sell it, however you underwrite it, you're talking about 600 times $63,600 plus the fee.

Matt James35:12You're a little over $4,000 but ideally, if you're buying something that's worth 30,000 retailing at 60, there's a nice margin in there for you. So that's... Private money is a thing of beauty. And the way I found my private lenders is literally just talking about what I do for the past year. And people just reach out because folks that know land know that how easy it is to find land at 50% of retail or lower. And there's nothing safer than parking your money into a piece of land that isn't worth twice what you're lending out.

Matt James35:44They're underwritten well and they're happy. You don't make payments? Alright, it's their land now at half price. They got announced. They feel protected. I think it's as long as you're a good operator, you know what you're doing. It's just amazing to be able to leverage that. In homes, that's like unheard of.

Brandon Parker36:00In homes, you gotta put down an absurd amount of money. You have to do draws for your subs and flow cash for them because those never come in time. It's a mess. On land is one. Talk a little bit more about those private lender deals. Are these people that you would find in it's if you throw a deal out there online, like you're saying or in a lot of there's a lot of land groups out there, you throw a deal out there, you'll have a lot of almost land investors who are real savvy, and they'll want 30% of the profit or something like that. But you're talking about deals that are just an interest rate with a and so I think that a lot of people don't realize that those better terms exist.

Brandon Parker36:38And so are you finding those in land groups specifically or just like you're calling

Matt James36:45or... Okay. Literally just posting what I do on forums and posting on x. I've had folks reach out to me, and I'm actively using them as lending funds. And it's just a matter of, you know, talk about what you're doing. Don't be afraid to talk about what you're doing, because it really comes down to your resume. Those private lenders want to know that you have success in doing this. So that's why I say as a first deal, this isn't really feasible unless unless you have a mom or dad or an uncle, a lot of money, and you can leverage something like that.

Matt James37:17But for most of us, you know, we gotta go with the traditional fifty fifty split because we don't have a track record. But once you've built that track record, these guys see what you're doing. So a lot of the times they're not really underwriting or doing the due diligence, probably doing something brief, but they're really relying on you. And they're looking for experienced investors to lend out to. So this is by no means like a first deal. But yeah, it's a lot of times I try to be I talked to a lot of newer investors as well. And they I always try to get them to zoom out when it comes to like timeframe. Everybody's always looking for how can I make $20 in two months or three months, whatever it is?

Matt James37:49Start thinking about it as try to make $20 this year. Build a process in place, do it on the side. And this kind of this might be a good segue into why I'm a massive proponent into keeping your w two and not quitting right away. Simply because of my experience with doing on the home side, even though I did well financially. Having... Not having the w two back then, it really comes down to one thing where you have your living expenses and then you have your business expenses. But most of the time, you may have these separated, but in your mind, you really combine these as this is how much money I have to survive.

Matt James38:28And when you're thinking like that, you really start thinking in terms of how many months do I have left to live? Like, how long can I float a mortgage payment and living expenses for my wife, my kids and all this kind of stuff? And of course, I'm talking about folks that have a family to support, whereas if you're in your twenties or something like that, and you're living in a dorm room, like, crush it. You guys are in the best position possible. Get out there. Don't make any more excuses. Let's go. But when you have more obligations to cater to, nothing can replace the security of that w two because what I found when I was wholesaling and flipping homes was those two buckets.

Matt James39:05I was meshed into one mentally. I've got eight months left to survive. And my mentality was always that I don't know if I really wanna spend $5 or $10 on marketing because now I'm losing two months of time, and I have to wait on stuff. And that deal that I... Whatever I spend $10 on, I might not realize for another twelve months. So it doesn't work for cash flow. So in those kind of instances, I was never making the best business decision because it was muddy waters. So when you have the w two and the w two covers your living expenses, your business expenses are your business expenses, then you're truly like, okay.

Matt James39:39I have money for marketing. I can see my cash flow path. Everything works out perfectly. But to caveat that, you have to be an insane hustler. You can't... There's no excuses. I have a little David Goggins on my shoulder that he's always screaming in my ears saying, who's gonna carry the boats? Yeah. I work on land from two to 06:00 in the morning every day, seven days a week for the last year. I think I've taken two days off.

Brandon Parker40:06Savage. I love that. You're working from two to six in the morning. When are you sleeping?

Matt James40:11Ten to two? From eight, eight to 01:30. Eight

Brandon Parker40:15to 01:30. Okay. Wow. That's a heck of a schedule. So what's rest of your schedule look like?

Matt James40:20So eight to 01:30, I sleep, wake up. So I have two kids. Have a four year old and one year old and we are sleeping situations that we co sleep. So I'm with my daughter till 01:30 and then we switch and then I got the baby later on. And so between bottles, I basically... I'm on the laptop doing everything I gotta do and getting the team set up because I have all my employees that handle all the day to day while I'm in the w two. So the other caveat to that is if you're trying to do this on the side, you have to immediately leverage other people's teams. You have to make the realization that I do not have time.

Matt James40:51And time is the the utmost important variable that I need to leverage. So you have to have money in place to build a team and use their time. And that comes with $4 an hour VAs overseas that you're training and you're getting set up. It takes time. But, yeah, I've got I've got, I believe, seven now. I might have just taken on my eighth, actually. But I've got cold callers, acquisition managers, lead VA that kinda runs everything for me. Then I'm just catching up on everything every single day and making sure that they've got enough pipeline to keep doing what they do for me.

Matt James41:23But... Yeah. So then two to six, I'm taking care of all that between bottles. Then around six, he starts shuffling around too much for me to be able to do anything. Getting ready for work. I work till about... Do all the kids stuff to get them out to preschool and breakfast for everybody and all that stuff. And then I go to my w two, work till five, get home at 05:30, do all the kids' baths, dinner, everything till about 07:30, hop in bed, go to sleep at eight every day. So it's... All I have time for is work and family. That's it.

Brandon Parker41:54I'm glad I got you on the podcast. It's awesome. Thanks for making time for all of... Everyone that gets to hear this. Let's hop into your ops a little bit because that's something that's really interesting to me. I love building teams in the whole, building those systems around that. Let's start with cold callers since, I'm interested in cold callers. I got a call center. You said you have six cold callers.

Matt James42:17How does that work? How do you monitor them? How do you... What call system do you use? I use a data tree, like probably most other land investors. I'm on an annual plan with them. Get everything's kit traced. I use Mojo dialer as my main dialer. They all have their own accounts. I have a lead VA. So my lead VA that I've trained and I've had with me for a long time, she was actually my VA back when I was on the home side. And I really lucked out with her. She's a massive reason for my success in this last year. And that's because not only is she just a badass in general, but she was a supervisor that had twenty, thirty folks under her in the cubicle farms over in The Philippines.

Matt James42:58And I I basically have trained VAs on tap because of her. So whenever I need another one, I don't have to do the whole submit a video, review review a 100 videos, you know, all that kind of stuff. She knows who her best people were, and she vouches for me that I pay way better. I give bonuses on every closing, commissions, depending on tenure, I raise their pay. I do everything I can to make sure they're as happy as possible. And, yeah, I give her a bonus as well every time she brings over another VA that is a good fit.

Matt James43:33And, yeah, I make sure they're all compensated on doing well. So it's been really nice to have her as my lead VA. But so she basically runs as far as managing the call recordings, checking to make sure everybody is doing what they need to do per the script, mainly for the newer folks. Everybody's hitting their time, reports, she gets to report out to me and we talk. We have two meetings a week where I go through just high level stuff with her. Yeah, she's she's definitely my fulcrum to my business. It's very appreciative of her. And I think everybody else, when you're building out an operation system, that first VA is everything.

Matt James44:05You really want to have a strong VA that you really pour a lot of time into. Maybe it's not the first one you get, maybe they stay in a cold calling place, and then you put it and bring on a second, and you realize that they're after it, and they're hustling, and they have that experience, whoever it is, but always keeping an eye out for that early indicator of someone that has that extra something, because they can really pour the gas on your fire.

Brandon Parker44:31Yeah, I'd throw out there for people who talk about hiring VAs, and it's always, I want to, and what I tell people is, go ahead and do it. A lot of it's not even about hiring a VA. A lot of it's about learning how to delegate to a VA and how to effectively communicate and how to make it so they're not taking more of your time than they're than they're providing value because that's that's a skill in itself. And so the earlier people get started hiring global talent, working with someone remotely, project managing, like getting reports back, like, all of that is such a nuanced skill that takes a long time to develop.

Brandon Parker45:09I like... I wish I would have just pulled the trigger. I I thought about hiring global talent for five years before I finally pulled the trigger because I wasn't sure quite how to do it. And then once I did it, felt okay. Like, now I'm starting to actually learn how to do this. And same thing as you. I have a VA who's been with me going on three years now and just absolute all star has been through multiple business pivots and with me and just is the heart of a lot of what we do. Yeah. Yeah. I would totally echo that. So if you've got six gold callers, how much data might they call through in a month?

Matt James45:46So this gets a little nuanced based on the type of dialer you're using because a lot of the time in the industry, you'll see a single line dialer versus triple line dialer. I find that most people in the industry use a triple line dialer. I like to use a single line dialer. I avoid triple line at all costs in my opinion. I find that every time I see KPIs on triple line versus single line, you still get the same amount of interested parties that wanna sell per day at a fraction of the amount of calls they're able to make.

Matt James46:19And one of the main things I think you can attribute that to is when people get that message, your cold caller might be on the line with one person. But then as the dialer is dialing in the background, the line two, three, whatever it is, however you're working on, Right? People answer, they get a message, they hang up, they mark it as spam, and, like, they're out as... Because they didn't hear that voice. So sometimes I find the total amount of dials made on a triple line dialer is, these really high numbers, like 12,000, whatever it is, something like that. I would implore that anyone that is actively doing that, just pull one of your callers off and just have them on a single line dialer and just compare it.

Matt James46:56Just see it for yourself. Just You're really not risking anything by doing that. And, yeah, you can drastically reduce your records and skip tracing cost just because it goes so much further on a single line dialer. And again, the massive KPI that stuck out to me that made me a mass proponent of that is that I am getting the same amount of interested parties as someone using a triple line dialer in the same area, same everything.

Brandon Parker47:25And what would you say... How many leads might you get a day for? Probably anywhere between... I'm trying to think because

Matt James47:33it's gonna be a convoluted answer simply because I have one of my cold callers that I pulled off for record scrubbing. Mhmm. And I'm just trying to think of my latest data. And I have another one that I pulled off for a side project, so it's probably based on, like, four cold caller numbers. And I would say each one of them, they're dialing I wanna say each one of them gets at least one point per day, maybe 1.5, one to 1.5, somewhere in that range per day.

Matt James48:07So unlike the four right now, I'm probably getting between five, six, somewhere in that range a day at the moment. The metric that I like to use because, like, seller interest is same as, a neutral letter. I don't necessarily like to use that as, like, too much of a measuring indicator. What I find that my main indicator is that each cold caller, if they are dialing forty hours a week, each cold callers efforts usually lead to a contract that I actually close on every six weeks.

Brandon Parker48:35Okay.

Matt James48:36Yeah. So on six cold callers full time, you should be averaging one deal that you're closing on every week.

Brandon Parker48:43That's... That sounds similar to what we've got going on. We say four to six weeks per cold caller for a deal Yeah. Which is... Sounds about right. The outbound call volume is similar. I think that what you're saying about the single dialer versus the multi dialer is is interesting. What does... How much do you measure their... How often do you listen to their quality assurance? How important do you think the script they're using is and how much they stick to the script? Or do you think it's just if someone's willing to answer the phone and talk and they give you their information, it's as good as the leads as a leads a lead.

Brandon Parker49:21What do you think on that?

Matt James49:22Yeah. So I structure my business a little bit different from folks I talk to. And I see a lot of people that have, again, tremendous success with having that incredibly dialed in. My process is very different simply because my time comes at a premium with a full time job. You know, these are people that are coming from a place of, having all day to try to dial in on that stuff. I'm trying to have the same amount of success living and dying by Pareto's law. So where 20% of my effort gets 80% of the results, and I found that it works.

Matt James49:54So I'm ruthless when it comes to cutting out stuff that I think doesn't matter and just focusing in on the absolute necessary qualities of a process. And so with that, I had three different versions of a script. And I said, screw this. They hop on the phone and they entrance... They introduce themselves with more or less, like, a kind of a casual statement of poking fun at the fact that they're a virtual assistant. Hey. Is this such and such... The the same opener? Because you wanna make sure you're talking to the right Is this the person that owns this parcel?

Matt James50:25And they're like, yeah. And they're like, I'm sorry to bother you with another call from The Philippines. Like, something silly like that. Yeah. Okay. And that gets their attention. And it's something like that because all the time, like, all of these people are usually getting calls from somebody that, like, oh, you're the owner of this. Are you interested in selling? So once I get that, and they say, yes, they're interested in selling. Really, all I care about is do they have a price in mind? Do they not? And that's it. Because I find a lot of people, they kill the the atmosphere of the call by going into, can you tell me more about it?

Matt James50:59When's the last time you were there? Is there a power pole nearby? Tell me about access. Because it's really easy for us as land investors to review everything on ID. Land. Just figure all that out in five minutes per lead. Right? So either you can do it yourself or you have an underwriter that specializes in that. But because of that, I try to make sure that we're always leaving the seller a positive mindset that like they smiled while they're on the call, we kept it really short, respectful of their time, and we're gonna get right back in touch with you here with an offer.

Matt James51:30And of course, most of the time, 99% of the time, they're gonna tell me to go screw myself on the offer because we're obviously trying to get great deals. But, nevertheless, the one that says yes, that has that positive mindset. And, again, when they're in that mindset, they're more likely to actually answer the next time we call and follow-up because of that positive connotation. So, yeah, I'm very loose on the script. As long as it's like that and they're interested in selling, do they have a price in mind? Yes or no? And that's it. That's all I care about. And I think that's all you really need to care about going back to that Pareto's Law mindset.

Brandon Parker52:04I think that's pretty sharp, actually. The... It's some output based thinking. And I think that you're incentivizing measurables because you're paying them on closes. So they're naturally incentivized to do their best and close deals are almost a little bit on commission basis.

Matt James52:19Every... My cold callers aren't the closers. They just call gauge seller interest and move on. Then I have someone that want basically imported... I use Pebble as my CRM. They import it into Pebble. They do all of the preliminary underwriting for me. And then my acquisitions manager takes it from there and gives them an offer. And then I'm like the last check where if they're actually interested in the offer given, I'm doing all my final checks, making sure no stone is left unturned and taking it from there and doing all the transaction coordination and everything because that's all I really have time for.

Matt James52:49Right? So I'm keeping the funnel fed with data, touching base from acquisitions manager on any kind of high level calls, any deals that are really coming to fruition. And then just doing any transaction coordination through emails and working on my minor subdivide and all the background stuff. There's always background stuff. And we just passed tax day working on taxes and whatever you gotta do. Onboarding a new caller and getting them set up on the back end with a new account in Mojo, new email, and all that kind of stuff. So, yeah, that's been my focus. Knowing I have limited time, I just gotta be really choosy about how I spend it.

Brandon Parker53:22I think how you're managing that with the outputs is a great way to do it. I... Shout out to John... I think it's John Seffer. I know he's connected with John Matzner, on on Twitter, but he had that book that he recently launched, output thinking. But it lines up a lot with how you're operating instead of micromanaging all the details. What is the end goal? And then managing that end goal and having KPIs around that is great. Also, the kind of classic pattern interrupt that you're using there with, another call from a...

Brandon Parker53:53Someone from The Philippines. I think anything that bumps people off of that just standard cold call, anything that shifts them out of that just thing they've done a 100 times is is a great move. I like that. And there was something that I like that you're looking for. Do you have a price in mind? And then the other thing that I think is interesting to ask is is there some sort of motivation? I like to ask if... Why are you thinking of selling it? What's going on? Or what were your plans for the property? Those type of questions that are conversational and maybe give you a little bit information about what's going on in their life.

Brandon Parker54:28Are they looking to sell this quick because their daughter's getting married in three months or they have not been out to it in twenty years? Saw your acquisitions manager a little bit. I know that's probably an important role. Where are they from and, like, how'd you find that position? How do they do it?

Matt James54:44Yeah, so I someone listening to this may may think that I got lucky in several regards, and I would agree with them. Going back to my lead BA and my acquisitions manager came from a connection with a broker that I worked with on the flipping and wholesaling side. And this guy lives in Nicaragua. He used to live in California, so he doesn't have an accent, but moved to Nicaragua. And there's obviously a a difference in conversion rate over there. So I pay him like $15 an hour and a commission for every deal that closes.

Matt James55:19And I have them... I only need them for a few hours a day. So that's another kind of tip that I would give to anybody starting out is most people that are reluctant to get a VA, usually they're like, they think they have to hire the VA full time, all day, every day. You really don't. If you only need them for three hours, hire them for three hours a day and go from there. You can always tailor down, you can scale up. I used to have him at two hours a day. Now I him at three hours a day just because the volume's going up. But he's he's been doing a great job. He's got that sales backgrounds coming from the broker side and that the broker that he used to work with.

Matt James55:52So I was able to leverage all of his training and everything from the years that he had with that guy. So I got... I think I got pretty lucky there with connections again. Network and connections. I've been in the real estate space here in Florida for a while.

Brandon Parker56:04Those win situations are just where people could crush it with global talents. If he's living in Nicaragua, you're paying $15 an hour. He works three hours plus commission. He's making great money, and he's working three hours day. He's probably pumped. He might... Maybe he has another job. Maybe he doesn't. Maybe he's just Yeah. Enjoying life at the beach. So that's cool. What's his commission structure look like? And how do you incentivize that properly? Do you base it on the purchase price, the pipeline profit,

Matt James56:31or is it just per deal? What's that look like? No, I literally just have a flat structure, just $200 a contract. And he was happy. I I asked him what he was looking for, and that's what he said. And I said, done deal. Let's go.

Brandon Parker56:43Yeah. That's Brad. It's looks like a couple few days pay or a few couple weeks pay, it looks like. Yeah. So that's killer. Okay. Nice. Nice. Any other interesting caveats to add on the cold calling part of your operation there? Yeah, I would say that some conversations

Matt James56:57that I was having with other investors about the kind of the best marketing channels, right? Because that always tends to be a conversation. And what I find is when you're a newer investor, you're really focused on what's the marketing channel I should start on. But as you hit critical mass where you're flowing with an operation that's in place, realize you're doing all of them. But even being in that seat now or, you know, done all the marketing I have, like, schedule for mail and cold calling and texting and voice mails and whatever, all the different stuff, I still have a favorite, and I'm really doubling down on it.

Matt James57:30And that would be cold calling. I've really... I stopped all mail. I don't do it at all anymore, and that's not to say that mail isn't worth it. I see a lot of people that are getting consistent flow from consistently mailing. The reason why I don't like it is just the time involved with getting it out and waiting between one to four or five months, the bulk of that coming in, like, month two or three from when you actually send the mail out. And there's, of course, the argument that there are people out there that will only respond to mail because your data may not be good and you can't reach them any other way.

Matt James58:08But the kind of the instantaneous aspect of calling, getting somebody on the phone and talking to them voice to voice is really powerful in my opinion. So I I really think what separates smaller operations from the bigger operations is doing cold calling in house if you can. A lot of the times, we don't have the time to do that. So their services, of course, yours. I'm getting started with offering something like that. I have one whole client right now. But I think it's going so far, and we'll see.

Matt James58:39I'm probably gonna ramp that up very slowly because, again, my time is at a crazy premium. But I think that's where a lot of the power is. If this is something you really want to build out for years and years, zooming out, I really think there's no replacement for cold calling and and having a lot of callers in house. That's something I would definitely recommend for somebody trying to break through and get to that next level.

Brandon Parker59:03Yeah, ping me because you build that out and ask them, we'll share tips and tricks because that's awesome. And it's sounds like you're crushing it. I love cold calling because of the feedback loop that you mentioned, like the whole sending it out and then waiting six weeks to see if that market hit or on having just this lumpy deal flow. And the other part about it that is very intriguing to me is the operationally the ability to just... If you have this lead channel with a quick feedback loop right on the front end that's just happening consistently in those few leads per day or dropping into your CRM, let's say, it's easier to build processes and systems and have VAs and people who are just on a schedule where they do these same things every day when it's happening like that.

Brandon Parker59:51When a bunch of leads are coming in one day and then none, and then you gotta figure out the next mailer, the whole managing a team, building the processes and operations on top of that lumpy deal flow becomes, to me, eighty twenty, just like you mentioned earlier, it just becomes more

Matt James1:00:07effective to just have the leads, quick feedback loop coming in every day, and then go from there, build from there. So that's a great point. Yeah. I never thought about it that way. That is a great point. It gives you consistency and and lead flow. Absolutely.

Brandon Parker1:00:20And so you've gone completely away from mailers and and you're now doing cold calling. And it looks like you're having a lot of success with that. That's awesome. Did you have anything else to add around the cold calling scene? No. I don't think so. Think that was it. Cool. We have talked about your subdivides, how you got into this, how you built your business, your w two, how you think about that, the cold calling. What other do you have any other kind of chunks of information that you want to talk about or anything you want to get into as we get into the last few minutes of the show here?

Brandon Parker1:00:52Land flipping silver biting? No, I think I think we probably ran through it all. We crushed it. I'm sure I'll have you back on a few months from now, this year again at some point, we'll see where you're at and how things have evolved, what's going on with the... Your callers. And... Oh, I had one one more question. I have two more questions. The first question is are all your callers remote or do you have them in an office together?

Matt James1:01:16No they are all remote in The Philippines. So I... There's kinda two trains of thought with that where I've seen folks that really scale an outsourced cold calling operation where they will actually go over there with the intention of hiring a 100 cold callers. Right? That is their bread and butter. That's their main business. They're not necessarily going after land flipping. They're more so going for... Can you hear me? Oh, okay. Sorry. I had some weird beeps. Didn't know. Am I losing you? Oh, you're just going in and out. Go ahead. Yeah. I think it's dying here.

Matt James1:01:46Let me Okay. Give me one second. Let's see if it works. If it doesn't, I'll disconnect it, and I'll just go through the laptop audio. K. But really two trains of thought here where I've seen folks that will go, for example, to The Philippines. They'll rent out an office, and they'll basically have a... They'll hire a manager in place to bring folks in and... But that's the intention of building a cold call center with 50 to a 100 cold callers or more. And that's really their main bread and butter as opposed to focusing on the land flipping stuff. I'm approaching it from a different angle of not necessarily building it that way, but building it one person at a time.

Matt James1:02:18And so give them the flexibility of working out of their own home, their own laptop, all their own stuff. Again, the spread of his law. I don't really want to put on all that extra stress of finding a manager and flying over there and opening an office or anything or having anything to manage like that. It's really just having that really strong VBA that holds them accountable for the recordings and different things that they're doing, KPIs, and making sure that they're hitting their amount of hours that they're supposed to call and they're doing what they're supposed to do. It's really what it comes down to. And then you really don't need that office or anything like that.

Matt James1:02:48You can just make an all operate on themselves. If they don't perform, don't perform, go on to the next one. So yeah, they're all in their own homes.

Brandon Parker1:02:56Beautiful. So final two questions. One, if you could send one message out to Twitter, everyone on all of Twitter would see it, what would that message be? And then number two, where can people find you online?

Matt James1:03:10One message that all of Twitter could see, it would be spend time with the people you love, because time is the only thing that matters. That's it. Beautiful. And then where they can find me is definitely on x Land Dev Matt, L A N D

Brandon Parker1:03:27D E V M A. Land Dev Matt, Matthew James, absolute pleasure to meet you talk to you today and I look forward to your next time on the podcast.

Matt James1:03:37Awesome. Thank you.