Ann and Mary Danielson : Land Fam

Brandon Parker00:00This is Brandon Parker. Welcome to the Legends of Land Show, where it's my job to deconstruct the tactics of elite land investors, how they think about their business and strategies to drive their success. My guests today are Mary and Anne Danielson, founders of the Danielson Land Ventures. They're returning for the second appearance on the show. Operating from Denver and The Philippines, the sisters combined Mary's client relations expertise with Ann's strategic planning skills to manage direct land deals in Tennessee. Their efficient and lean operations focus on rural subdivides using their complementary strengths to run a successful business with no realtors.

Brandon Parker00:36Their approach is rooted in a deep trust and land as a valuable asset. You can find them online at selltolandfam.com. In this conversation, we cover how they went down from two VAs down to zero. Their sniper marketing approach, they've actually done no outbound for five months and how they've done that and kept the money coming in the door. JV partners, fifty fifty partnerships, how they look at partnerships in their business, the family compound approach to marketing, and how they still haven't taken bank financing, and what they're doing as far as money seeking funding and the next steps in growing their business.

Brandon Parker01:11Without further ado, please enjoy this wide ranging conversation with Anne and Mary Danielson.

Ann Danielson01:26Business.

Brandon Parker01:34Mary and Anne, welcome to the Legends of Land podcast. Great to have both of you back in. How are you doing today? Doing good. Good to see you again, Brandon. Yeah, absolutely. It's fun to catch up after a little while. So

Mary Danielson01:49in the land business, what's changed over the last six months or second half of the year for you? In a lot of ways we've scaled back, I would say. We've scaled up our deal size, but our marketing and our team has actually shrunk. We've gone from two VAs down to zero only because we also stopped doing our outbound marketing for now. So it's not that we're off of it forever, but currently all of the projects that we're in have come to us in some new ways.

Mary Danielson02:21And so we really aren't on the hunt for more leads right now because we're doing an on market deal that came through a broker. We're doing a large project with a partner and that deal came from a bird dog. And then we are doing another subdivide that came from someone who is just interested in learning from us. And so our hands are full and we're really happy with how things are going to take off in 2025. So we thought, okay, we'll just take the pedal off the gas on the outbound marketing for now and just enjoy these projects and really dig in.

Brandon Parker02:55That's killer. So with the VAs, what was the main benefit of having two VAs? Maybe what were some of the bigger challenges you came into and then what was behind the decision to go down to zero?

Mary Danielson03:08I guess their main purpose was to do map scrubbing. And so because we're not doing outbound marketing, we don't need any maps scrubbed. And because we have such a small market in just Tennessee, they've pretty much scrubbed the state for us already. So it's not really like we let them go, it's just that the project was done, work was complete. So we didn't have any issues with them. I mean, one was much stronger than the other and he and I are still in contact on WhatsApp and things. So I know I can call him back anytime and he has another full time job.

Mary Danielson03:42So I didn't leave him high and dry or anything. But I think as soon as we can find something for him to work on, we'll give him a ring back. But for right now, he's done all of his homework, so we're good to go.

Brandon Parker03:52Nice. What's your map scrubbing process look like and your data scrubbing from pulling raw data till you get ahold of it? What's that whole system look like? I

Mary Danielson04:04just made a little Loom video that showed him how to get started, and we went from there. And so it just teaches how to have a screen open with MapRite and then screen open with the data inside and pasting the APN and just staying in one county, pasting the APN and making sure all the filters are turned on for wetlands and flood. And obviously he can see the road frontage as soon as it loads. But then also the contours for topography and the transmission lines and the railroads.

Mary Danielson04:37And so he was able to buzz through those about one record in a minute. Is really good at it and fast. And I know since that the land portal might be replacing a lot of that, I'm not sure because we haven't used it ourselves, but his eye was really good. And when I was teaching him how to do it, just like, imagine that you're in this space, you're driving up, you're on this property. Does it make sense that it could be five lots or six lots, or don't worry about the number, but can you see a number of places that maybe a build site could go that's nearby the road?

Mary Danielson05:14Yes, there's a creek. That's awesome. If it runs the length of the road in front, that's going to be expensive for culverts. So try to really imagine like, this is my land, I'm pulling up, what does it look like? And so I do think that the land portal must be great and I'm excited to try it, but I don't think it would still replace the job that he did for us.

Brandon Parker05:34Yeah. I've been... Actually was just exploring Land Portal with my team today, and we might test it out. So I'll let you know how it goes. Land insights is something that we're also testing out. I know that there's a lot of teams that are kind of racing to do the AI thing where you can try to replace that, but it also... There's some things that seem like they're really hard to define. And, yeah, we have scrubbers on our team who go through manually still and do it. So I think probably a lot of land investors are in that same spot where we're trying to decide how much can we automate and how much just still needs to be done by a human.

Brandon Parker06:06But interesting. And so did you have him looking for subdivide specifically or were you looking for just any flippable land? What kind of buy box were you scrubbing for? Yeah, he was looking for subdivides only. And I would even say super scrubbing our list.

Mary Danielson06:20This year, our last mailer was probably five months ago and it was 700 mailers. And so they're just really personalized and we knew exactly who we wanted and where we wanted them to go. Yeah, our buy boxes that we want, the bigger the better, the more road frontage the better, and decent topography, at least near the road. And then obviously only in markets where there's activity and things happening. But yeah, we definitely have always been small in the number of mailers that we've sent and now that's just dwindling down to almost nothing.

Mary Danielson07:00And now that he's scrubbed, like I said, the whole state for us, we either need to move on or we need to update things. But I think for now we'll just

Ann Danielson07:08wait and see what happens in January for now. Yeah. And I think the data is still there. We can use it again in a different form. Should we go back to doing some mail? We know that there's some good stuff left to run after, but at this point we've been lucky, I guess. I don't know.

Mary Danielson07:27And maybe to have Brandon's callers call too. That was the other thing that we were thinking about is just checking in the new year. Yeah.

Brandon Parker07:37Generally cold call stuff about four months after people mail it. It's a decent strategy to try. It sounds like you've both got a lot of deals from networking. Do you see yourself going back to mailers? I mean, obviously, you probably will at some point, but you've built this really solid network. You've got something on market with a broker, a deal from a bird dog, and then where'd your third one come from? Oh, somebody wanted to work with you. Is that, like, Twitter or something? Yep. So right now, we currently have four subdivides

Ann Danielson08:07up and running as of last night. Oh, wow. Two of Yeah.

Mary Danielson08:13Two at the market yesterday, which is a hub of activity. So Bert dog realtor,

Ann Danielson08:19somebody wanted to work with us. And then one of them was actually a letter from a while ago. It just took a little while to to get the deal done and and cleaned up. And the Perkin survey for whatever reason took a long time in that area. So that one was from a mailer.

Brandon Parker08:37Do you see a world where you can just sustain on bigger deals that you come in through your network, come almost like inbound lead type thing without mailing? That's the dream. That is definitely,

Mary Danielson08:50I think so. I've never liked mailing and I've never liked like the hustle aspect of things as much. So I think when we realized that we understood how to do the value adds that could make a difference and that could allow us to pay the seller a little bit more and then to have plenty out on the back end for ourselves or for us with a partner, it feels like a better fit for us. Yeah, I think we probably should put our energy into just making sure that we take care of all the people that we work with in our teams and just treat everybody right and keep building in our little tiny niche.

Mary Danielson09:26Then that's how we got there, right? I think we just hunkered down and that has allowed us to meet a lot of people. And then just making sure that our reputation stays solid so that people remember who we are and then want to work with us because they like the way that we operate.

Brandon Parker09:44What do you think your best source for networking has been? Is there any place that has stuck out to you like Twitter or anything specifically?

Ann Danielson09:55Feel like we've gotten quite a few emails just from various people listening to these podcasts, with questions. And then of course we're willing to help, but then a lot of times they're like, do you want a partner? And if we can, we will, or if we like it, we will. So I feel like obviously the podcasts are great. And then Anne does a lot on go ahead, Anne, like school and your favorite one. What's that?

Mary Danielson10:22Is not my favorite. I think people reach out for sure. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, I agree that just last year we made it our priority to get out of our little nest and be a little bit more public and engage with people, especially since we aren't able to attend the conferences and meet people. And once we did that, it was really pushing ourselves because it's not natural for us, but we saw the benefit and we saw how we could help people and how people could help us. And we had the podcast, I agree, Mary, absolutely like this, Brandon, thank you.

Mary Danielson10:56It does just help people get a better sense of who we are since we're not in the real world that much. And also I did join a school group that had a lot of newcomers in it. And so I felt comfortable being able to offer feedback there just as someone who's a little bit further down the path. And then a buddy, actually a mutual friend, Matt said, You got to get on Twitter, you got to get on Twitter. And then I thought, every time I go on there, it's just so political and like I'm walking into a men's locker room and I just don't want to.

Mary Danielson11:30And so he said, yeah, just get over it. And so I did. And some of the land operators alliance and those kinds of places where it's focused on land and not all the other things that people like to banter about in there. But yeah, definitely we've had some investors come that way as well that have just seen some of our deals and then said, I'm here if you are looking for funds. Yeah, it has been,

Brandon Parker11:56I guess not, I don't enjoy it as much, but I do think it's been helpful as a networking tool. Yeah. The Land Operators Alliance is a great group. That's the land lawyer, Brian. He's cool. He's one of my favorite podcasts, actually. Which school group are you in? Curious about that. There's a lot of good school groups. We're just in Pete Reese's school Yeah. That's one of the best. I love that group. Oh, yeah. I was active in there when you first got in there, and then you started just dominating the leaderboard.

Brandon Parker12:27You're giving all kinds of feedback. You're you're very active in trophy. Yeah.

Mary Danielson12:32Someone took your crown. I think that. I think Larry. I think Larry's there. Yeah.

Brandon Parker12:37He's an OG. He's been there for a while. That's cool. Yeah. That's that Pete Reese's Land Conquest School group is fantastic. I love that group. I always think of going back and being more active. Spread pretty thin. But, yeah, that's cool. I just started a school group as well. I might as well give it a little shout out here. I have a school group for cold calling. There's people out there who just wanna do cold calling on their own. And since we've done 5,000,000 cold calls at this point, we have all kinds of little tips and scripts and everything. I started a school group, so someone can ping me in Twitter. They want to come in there, and I'm doing coaching.

Brandon Parker13:10Very Yeah. Everyone's got their little niche. That's been fun, though. Like, shooting little videos and making little mini course on how to do cold calling. Yeah. It's kinda fun. Yeah. You've been active. And then did you used to go to conferences, or what was... What what were you doing before you decided to hit social media, the podcast thing, and all that?

Ann Danielson13:27Just mailing.

Brandon Parker13:28Okay. You're just doing the OG mailing thing. Yeah, we were just sat down and working.

Mary Danielson13:34I live in The Philippines, I can't just zip over

Ann Danielson13:38for a little on conference or something as much as I would love to. It's too far and I still have my day job. So being physically able to attend and get to meet any of the land folks, haven't been able to. Yeah. I mean, initially I think we started just on Facebook and then I did that little group on Tuesday mornings where we met Ross, who we still reach out to often and he reaches out to us. So that was a great connection, but it was just literally just Facebook, like our normal land fan page, no group or anything.

Ann Danielson14:09And so we formed a little group there that was good for a little while. And then it kind of diminished, but

Mary Danielson14:14I think that was rooted in Pebble, right? In

Ann Danielson14:18Oh, yeah. Is that what it was? I'm sorry. Okay. I felt okay. We must have just messaged through Facebook, but yeah, you're right. It was like a pebble group when it was getting going and trying to figure out the... How to use it best, but it turned into more. So it was good.

Brandon Parker14:35I love that much. What's the family compound approach for marketing?

Mary Danielson14:40Sounds like it ties in. That one, that's new. One of our subdivides ended up being five lots that are all right around five acres, and they're very similar, and they all perk for four bedrooms. And they have the same amount of road frontage. So I think then I saw a post somewhere where someone was saying, I really need a family compound. I want to give to my kids land. I want to keep us all together. And then there were countless replies and people saying, want to do something similar.

Mary Danielson15:13And then I thought, okay, wait a second, there's something here. And then I just, all I did was make a post with a survey and no photos because they weren't ready yet or anything and just said, Oh, no sibling rivalry here. Like these lots, there's one for all the kids and mom and dad too, or something. And the engagement with it was big. And so then I thought, okay, actually there's two ways to think about this. One is just for marketing some of the projects that we're working on now to think about are any of these really well suited for kids in the family to all have their barndominium side by side.

Mary Danielson15:50But then the other side is then, should we be looking to develop these types of lots? One in particular where they'll need a well, people in Tennessee don't like to share. And so the wells are quite expensive and for us to put in four wells would be a lot. But if it's four family members, they could definitely just all tap into the same. So it's new and it's just something that we're starting to think about. But I'd like to look at it. And actually I talked to about how we could help families with writing the deed in maybe a way that's tax beneficial for the buyer or the person who's gifting the land or who's The parent.

Mary Danielson16:34Yeah, the parents or the grandparents. To make a big example, yeah. Yeah, to make sure that maybe they can save on some taxes and then they can stay on the deed as long as they're around. And so we just have been kicking the idea around so far, but it's starting to grow. I like the idea. It wouldn't be a one trick pony or anything. It would just be something we would add to our tool belt. But I think where we are in Tennessee, there is, it's not a trend, but I think people are interested in keeping their families together and using land to do that.

Brandon Parker17:10And when you get a buyer that's looking for that specifically, they're going to be hyper motivated. So yeah, there's less of those people. But when you find someone who's looking for it, they're going to want that property because it's probably so hard to find something like that. So it's really a unique niche. And so you're thinking of just a lot of the subdivides that you end up getting could probably fall into that to that possible marketing way to market, hon.

Mary Danielson17:35Yeah. And it's really, it's too new for us to know. But typically when we're creating our splits, we want to have a lot of variety in the parcel sizes and their attributes to make sure that we aren't competing against ourselves and that people can find the tract that is best suited for them. But if we do find that they are going to sell well and quickly that we choose four and make them smaller and all the same or something, maybe there's something there. But we don't know yet. We'll see.

Mary Danielson18:06Like the perfect square

Ann Danielson18:08property is going to be your best bet for dividing it up equally.

Mary Danielson18:15Yeah. And not infill lots, right? These are more like, they still want a lot of land and they don't want to be in an HOA or any kind of subdivision, but they just want maybe an area where all the whole family can just congregate. Another one of our properties is similar, but I think what we would do in that case is it's partially cleared and partially wooded. And so maybe to divide up the cleared part into four tracks, or I don't know why I'm saying four, everyone doesn't have four kids, three or two or five.

Mary Danielson18:49But then to leave the back as nice hunting land or for horses. It's just that I think it's a good way for everybody to have theirs and then to share something that's larger because it is a lot of work to take care of a larger tract like that. And also it's easy to share it. I mean, you're probably going hunting with your brother anyway. Yeah, was going say that you have your house, but then all five of you

Ann Danielson19:16or whatever, or 10 of you can share all of the land, which I think would be amazing. Have your little house flat. And of course, yes, you own this portion and you can sell it. But when you're all living there, it's great to have 25 acres versus just five.

Brandon Parker19:32Yeah. Can you talk a little bit more about... I haven't heard that before. The variety of a subdivide, so you're not competing against yourself. Good. Yeah, can you talk a little more about that? Don't always have that luxury because

Mary Danielson19:48the topography in Tennessee is a little bit wild sometimes. So sometimes the split is what it is because of what you need to do based on the terrain,

Ann Danielson19:59right? If Evaluation, yeah. Yeah,

Mary Danielson20:02if we're actually, if we have some flexibility, we definitely do try to vary the track sizes so that we can market them in different places for different people. And the goal isn't always for us to go to the smallest that we can with the County restrictions. Sometimes it really is that this 20 acres should stay together for this reason. And then next to it might be a smaller tract that's easier to manage and not as expensive because there definitely are cash buyers that can't do a larger tract, even if they want to.

Mary Danielson20:41And then there are some that want to. Even still, we did do a subdivide where we did that to vary the tracks to vary the audience. And then the same buyer has now come back three different times for three different tracks.

Ann Danielson20:57So we're returning it to the original date.

Mary Danielson21:01Because it's saving up more money and saying you just wait for me, wait for me. And we did and it's been awesome.

Brandon Parker21:07That's Yeah. Cool. Oh, so I'm picturing, okay, 40 acres and you might do a 20 acre, a 10 acre and two fives or something like where you... Okay. Yeah. Interesting. A lot of times the price per acre increases

Ann Danielson21:19for the five acres or five to 10 acres. The price per acre will make up for maybe your 20 acre that you had to leave big because it's less money. How do I say that? I don't know. But Mhmm. Price per acre is higher when it's a little bit lower usually. I think that part of it too, looking at it that way, helps you just do the math on how to split it.

Brandon Parker21:46Yeah. It feels like the default is generally just split it up as tiny and as much as you possibly can and then sell it off. I love that angle. You're both constantly contrarian with your takes on land, which I like. That's cool. Very cool. That said,

Mary Danielson22:02we just are now in process of proposing a preliminary plat that goes as small as two acres. Is that right, Mary? Yeah. Yeah. It's the whole project is 121 acres. And then what we did, it's split in the middle with a road. So south of the road, and this is also dictated by the land itself. The front two or three acres are beautiful and flat. And then they back up to a year round Creek.

Mary Danielson22:33That's also really desirable. Wants a place for their barn door and a Creek in the back. And then beyond that is a really steep cliff. And so what we did is we took the west end and we gave them the same three acres or so that are buildable in the front. And then they own all of the kind of rough terrain hiking land or hunting land in the back. And then in the front we made, I can't remember if it was five or six tracks that are between two and three acres each.

Mary Danielson23:03And they have, they do meet the county restrictions in terms of road frontage and then the angle of the split that it's 90 degrees from the road. We can get enough water taps all confirmed by the utilities companies. The commissioner is really being favorable and helpful. And so this is a first for us is that we're actually going to go through the county approvals for not a, it's not a major subdivide. We do need to get some fire hydrants. Those are also new for us. Yeah.

Ann Danielson23:33Have a fire hydrant. Party time.

Mary Danielson23:35Yeah. Woo. But I think it wasn't the plan, but it made sense. And then the price per acre, the proximity to the town all just pointed in the direction. And then when the county was also really helpful, it was okay, let's give it a go. So we don't know if we're approved yet. I think December sixth ninth ninth is the first meeting. So yeah.

Brandon Parker24:00With the county, how much of that comes down to your relationship with the county versus just the what's what the regs are? Is there does a really good relationship help or is it just there it's cut and dry and

Mary Danielson24:15it's? It seems a little bit of both. I mean, I think the County knows what they want to see happen in that area. So if they're against it for any reason, any number of steaks or donuts is not going to change the guy's mind. But in this case, they I don't think that they mind seeing development out in the direction that we're going. And he was, he's been very communicative all along. And so I think we are building a relationship and I do think he likes us and we're following through on everything we say that we're going to do.

Mary Danielson24:49But more than that, it's that the county is agreeable to seeing some development in that area. Yeah. And the utilities support it. I think that's the other big thing, right? Is that the fact that they have plenty of water and that the fiber and the electricity is already there.

Ann Danielson25:07That's probably Makes sense. That's why it's there. Yeah. It's not to be developed probably into a tiny little subdivide or cul de sac, but I think that they like that it's two acres is a nice place to build a home, but it's not 20 homes.

Mary Danielson25:23Right, and then for others, it's not that easy to find two acres or three or four or even five that are unrestricted. And we also do always leave our land unrestricted. We learned that lesson early on that we're still learning it.

Brandon Parker25:43Sounds like there's a story around that. What's the No, we just have one HOA property that

Ann Danielson25:49it'll sell.

Mary Danielson25:51Yeah, it's a stinker.

Ann Danielson25:53I think we would just buy anything.

Mary Danielson25:56That's true. We also had one property that had very minor restrictions, like no pig farms or junkyards, think were And the two things on that was enough that it was like, nope, minor restriction, I'm out. But are you planning on having a junkyard or farm?

Brandon Parker26:14Just on principle.

Mary Danielson26:18So we leave it unrestricted.

Brandon Parker26:20Okay. That's great. You had a note, burned up bee lock.

Mary Danielson26:26Yeah, we sure did. We just burned that bee lock right out.

Brandon Parker26:30What

Ann Danielson26:31is that? She stole the phone.

Mary Danielson26:34My husband and I have a rental property that is paid off. And so we had just the bee lock sitting there and we thought, okay, let's make sure we just open it up while we're home. Cause also it's a lot of paperwork and you have to actually physically be in the office, which is not a big deal for most people. But for us, the time that it took to get it open was probably about six weeks, which is about the time that we have in the summer when we're in America. And so we just opened it up to make sure that it was there if we needed it.

Mary Danielson27:05And then we were happy that it was because then a broker did bring us an on market deal that fell through. The original buyer wasn't able to sell their property. So they weren't able to buy this property and the seller was already really anticipating the sell and had made other plans. So then that broker called us and said, Hey, are you guys ready to pull the trigger with cash? If you are and you can move quickly, I think you can get a hell of a deal on this one. And so we did actually. And that one hit the market, yes?

Mary Danielson27:37Yes, Congrats. So we used every pretty, thank you. We used the BLOC money to be ready to roll so that we could pull the trigger on that one.

Brandon Parker27:48Nice. That's like a, something I've seen people give advice for is get money when... Or get access to your money or loans, etcetera, and apply for lines of credit before you need them because having them liquid and ready to go can... Is the way to set yourself up for opportunity. So it sounds like you got that all lined up perfect timing. So was that, you got that lined up just just in general, or did you know this deal was on the table?

Mary Danielson28:17We didn't know that this deal was on the table. We just knew that we were doing a lot of buying and we were running out of money. And we, the other benefit I guess is that there's no harm in doing it because if you're not using those funds, it's a HELOC or a VLOC, there's no interest, it's not accruing. It's just a line of credit. Yeah, to have it there and to have it be ready is great. And then we'll make sure, because we don't have a lot of leverage that when we pay back, we sort of have like our waterfall of how we need to pay back the funds to minimize the amount of interest that we are paying.

Brandon Parker28:54How do you manage all your taxes, CPA, bookkeeping, and all of that with all the land deals and things that you have going on at once?

Mary Danielson29:03It was a mess. And now it's, we use 2023 to get ourselves

Ann Danielson29:10the right team and sorted. Wouldn't you say, Mara? Yeah. I think moving forward, we're in a good place. By the end of this year, we'll be in a good place with all the things that we need set up properly for the future. And I mean, obviously I think it's beneficial. I don't know how people sell, buy and sell land in all of these states. Can't even keep track of like, and technically her business is out of Wisconsin, mine's out of Colorado, but we buy and sell in Tennessee. And I think it was... It took a little while to explain it to our CPA.

Ann Danielson29:45And now he's got it, and I think we're on the right track and we're using the same company for our CPA and now our payroll, which I think will be super helpful. And then we have an accountant that is separate, but they communicate really well. So I feel good about, I don't feel like I'm gonna be chasing documents come tax time or whatever like we were last year, but that's because we were switching to an S Corp. Yeah.

Mary Danielson30:11And we have the extra complexity of the fact that I'm an expat. So I have the FEIE, the foreign exemption for my income that is just a little bit unfamiliar to mix with land, to mix with a couple of states and a partner. And I understand why our tax situation was trickier than usual, but the fact that it is the end of twenty twenty four and we only wrapped up our 2023 taxes like on the date, like October 15.

Mary Danielson30:43October, yeah. I think we were literally on the last day. So now going forward, we'll be tidy with 2024 and then we'll be proactive, I think for 2025.

Brandon Parker30:55Yeah. Think getting in that proactive spot is important. Think that, probably a similar track to you. I talk to people, clients and stuff about getting started in corporate structures and things like that. Do you feel like the maybe path as as people start would be LLC and then get a bookkeeper and then maybe the following year getting a CPA for a little bit of pretax planning and then a... If you get enough income switching to an s corp, you'd see that as, like, the progression or...

Brandon Parker31:27Yeah. Any thoughts on that corporate structure stuff?

Ann Danielson31:30Absolutely that. And I think it's important to have your CPA and your bookkeeper communicate well, because I think that's how all the mess got cleaned up. We're like, okay, we don't know. So that's why we need You guys talk. Yeah. Yeah. Because it was, there were too many, I guess you could say, we had a lot of before they weren't communicating. And then when they started communicating nor when we introduced them to each other, it was definitely a lot easier for us and that's what we're paying them the big bucks for. Yeah.

Brandon Parker32:01The only question I want to answer is what was this transaction? Outside of that, I have no idea what's going Yeah. I don't know. You tell me. I don't, I know where I spent that money. I have no idea anything else. Please help. I get it. Are you using a, like a large national chain for something for bookkeeping and CPA? Is it just individual people that you Okay. I think our bookkeeper

Mary Danielson32:26was a referral from a land person that I've known for a long time. And he is known as being familiar with the land business. So that's been great. But our CPA is very local and lovely and very Tennessee. And so it did take a little bit of time for us. He was entertained by us, but I don't think he that our situation.

Ann Danielson32:50Now he went from entertained to interested. So that's a plus. That's

Mary Danielson32:55true. And we did, we paid him a nice visit and we, yeah, we've had some time with him and now we can zoom with him and it's good. Yeah.

Brandon Parker33:04The bookkeeper, that land bookkeeper,

Ann Danielson33:07tell them it might be a good idea to get on Twitter, the land bookkeeper, they would probably have people knocking it up down their door and probably start a little land bookkeeping agency. Yeah. He might be. Cause I remember one time he called me and he's, Hey, I just listened to your podcast. So I don't know. He's probably like, all right, what are these people doing? And he's probably gonna close down the bookkeeping and start landing questions.

Brandon Parker33:31If doing

Ann Danielson33:32your books, he might get some ideas, Yeah. But I will mention it to him and just say, Hey, get out there. So no, we don't want people to, oh yeah. That's right. Never mind. Yeah.

Mary Danielson33:43Don't share your bookkeeper.

Brandon Parker33:48There's certain things. That's very true, very true. For me, it's I don't share my GHL engineer. He's just mine. That's right. Yeah. Cool. And then, so you have been doing all this so far with doing no bank financing. You have your line of credit, but you've still been pulling all this off with no financing. How's that look going forward for you?

Mary Danielson34:16Not good.

Brandon Parker34:17That's good though. But yeah, not good. That's good. Not good. The auction is in six months.

Mary Danielson34:24The most recent deal that we just did, we wouldn't have been able to do without a fiftyfifty partner. And so this is the bird dog deal. And so they actually reached out to us and said, we've been like stalking you guys and we're from the Midwest too. And we like how you guys operate that it's just you're small and that you really care about people and whatever. So we jumped on a zoom and we liked him right away. I think he had a big like hockey hoodie and he was in his garage.

Brandon Parker34:57Nice. Yeah.

Mary Danielson34:58So Mary's a fan. North. Yeah. Actually they're from Chicago and that is They

Ann Danielson35:04are fibs, but we love them. They're fibs.

Brandon Parker35:07We can't break down that acronym. I was gonna say, I'm not sure what that is. Should I ask? That's right, hold it up. Just look at it. Okay.

Mary Danielson35:15They're great guys. But the day that we met with them was the day that we realized actually we could make this purchase. And the buy was $600,000 and it probably needed some excavation of an old logging road. And so then they said, we know you don't really look work with partners. Here's what we can bring. And the first thing that they had written is that they had just done a subdivide with excavating an old logging road. I was like, Oh, that's what we need.

Mary Danielson35:46And so then when we jumped on, we said, okay, our hands are full with these other projects. If you guys can operate it with our team, because we already have people in the area, then it seems like this is a really good fit. And so then they were happy and we're happy. We're literally in an even Steven and we both put in half of the purchase price in cash. And then so far it's going really well. Think,

Ann Danielson36:10we've It's a little strange for me because they're doing my work, but it's great because they are doing some things that I have not, or we have not tried to do. So I'm just sitting in the background following along so that we can do it on the next one. Should it be a fit either on our own or, or together again, but yeah, it's been great. They're really great.

Mary Danielson36:32And the other thing that they said they had was time. And I was thinking, that's interesting. Nobody has time, but they really do. I don't know if he drives around or walks around or I don't know how, but he can call the County guy who never calls back, but who's really nice if you can get ahold of him. And he said, he's willing to just tell the secretary, Oh, I'll hold.

Ann Danielson36:55And then he just, Oh, that's funny. I forgot about that. Yeah, you're right.

Mary Danielson36:59He'll stay on the phone for an hour or two hours. So he must just have his AirPods in and I don't know what he's doing, mowing the lawn or I don't know, doing a surgery. I don't know what he's doing, but he can hold for two hours. So it's been a good fit. Yeah.

Brandon Parker37:12And sounds like you're a little bit opposite of your standard. You've been partnering with people who are watching you do subdivides, but in this case, you're watching someone else do some parts of the subdivide that you haven't done before. Sounds like. Yep, exactly. Feel like we're all learning from each other. We have the team, so it's okay. Or like the expertise,

Ann Danielson37:31if you will, in Tennessee, or I'm like, oh no, you gotta call all three offices. And when they do it, I'm like, but I can. Cause I just feel weird that I'm not. But I think for them, they're like, oh yeah, okay. Or we've even taught a couple of our realtors about getting culverts put in and that the county will do it and you don't have to pay $9 depending on where they're located, things like that. I feel like they're learning. And then, so it's, I think a great

Mary Danielson37:58combo. Yeah. I mean, that's the beauty, right? Like when everyone brings something different to a team and then you can delegate and communicate, then it's super solid. So we really clear our contract also was a bit probably over the top, but I think we all felt good about it because we don't know each other. We were on one Zoom call, we've never met. And it was important, I think from the beginning, to spell out everything since it's a pretty big deal.

Mary Danielson38:31And we talked for forty minutes before we got into it. Yeah, I think the communication piece has been great and we just use a group chat inside of WhatsApp. And so if people just have a one off or an information item, they just pop it in there. And then we have a running because they're not in our CRM. And so the communication piece has to be separate from everything else. But we use a running Google Doc that's the same kind of agenda that Mary and I use, where you just are always popping the newest items at the top and tagging whose job it is.

Mary Danielson39:05And then at the tippy top of the document are all the live links for the folders and the pictures and the sites that you go to all the time. So it's like building your own in some ways, but I think those just those two tools have helped us in working with the fellows.

Brandon Parker39:21That's great. So you're doing sounds like the project management and a Google shared Google Doc and then just all the chat and WhatsApp and keeping it pretty simple like that. Yeah, Exactly. Killer. Are you using... Is there any other tools you're using outside of that for that project or is that everything can be done with just those two nice and simple? I mean, I...

Mary Danielson39:42Land ID and then just the usual Zillow.

Ann Danielson39:49Yeah. I mean, yeah, nothing special,

Mary Danielson39:51just nothing special.

Ann Danielson39:53Easy dock and we meet, I guess what every couple of weeks or something like that, just to see now that it's done and I think they already started working on it this week or done enrolling. I mean, there's, we'll meet and see where we're at and see if we obviously will wait for the county meetings that we've not used to having and see if we need to make any changes. But other than that, I feel like we're silent partners now.

Brandon Parker40:20Nice.

Ann Danielson40:22You can do something like that's the goal, I think. Originally going into land, it was like, oh, you're gonna have free time and then you get so addicted and caught up in it that you don't because you're excited and now it's actually it's okay. Anne and I have a little bit of trouble about what should I be doing? It's a good place to be, I think, moving forward.

Mary Danielson40:43Yeah, I think we were in the middle of more than we ever have been, but we're not busy. So it doesn't feel that comfortable. It means we have to exercise or make dinner.

Brandon Parker41:01Tough times.

Mary Danielson41:03I don't want to, I wanna be busy on my computer doing land. But

Ann Danielson41:09I think it's really initially going back to 2022 or whatever, whenever we started was to have a good work life balance and to have some freedom. I'm like, oh my God, I actually have a little bit of time. It goes in up and down, which is fine because now we just listed two properties today. So it's like all the work was done. I'm ready for the next one.

Mary Danielson41:33So There's nothing really

Ann Danielson41:36that we can do. Yeah. It's like checking in on the surveyor every now and again, or the putting stuff in the pebble. But other than that, I'm like, okay, guess I'll work on the taxes. So

Brandon Parker41:51you've scaled up the size of your deals. You're doing about four larger projects right now, but your time is free. So are you finding yourself able to spend more time with strategy or when you start looking at the business and how to use that time? What are your thoughts and what's like pulling you?

Mary Danielson42:11Oh, we just talked about this because obviously we're rolling into the holiday season. And for the last two years, Mary and I kind of debated, do we grind through December or do we just enjoy? And I know that again, it's gonna be a little bit contrarian, but we enjoy because we work hard enough during the year. And my kids are in grade 11 and grade 12. So for my senior, it's the last year that I'll have her at home for Christmas. And we're taking December off, my family's going to Portugal and Spain and Mary's is enjoying hockey and then

Ann Danielson42:50we're gonna go to hockey. So it'd be great.

Mary Danielson42:53I'm gonna get my tree up tonight though. I think it doesn't really feel like we're taking the time off because we've just teed up three of the projects and one of them is winding down. So I think in January, then we'll be able to look ahead and say, okay, then what next? But when you don't have any more money and everything's just gotten a little bit of a lift off, it's okay. I think for us to just take a month.

Mary Danielson43:24And then during that month, just be open to where we want to go and what we want to do. I do think for us, feels better doing the value add stuff rather than the hustle. And so I think for that to be possible, it is going to come back to maybe some loans through banks and then developing some more investor relationships. The ones that we've had really good luck with are people who are outside of land who've reached out and said, oh, do stockbroking and whatever, but maybe you can bring me on a deal and give me 10% in a year.

Mary Danielson43:58And then I was like sold, that was great. And so I think that's the other thing that we're learning is that our goal to go a little bit more public with social media and connecting in the network that way was really the right move. And I think now I don't know how to do it, but we need to be in touch with people who are in our network that are like doctors and lawyers and Investors. Hockey dads. Really

Ann Danielson44:24rich hockey dads in Colorado.

Mary Danielson44:26Is that, go ahead. Nice. Volleyball dads. Volleyball dads. Poms maybe.

Ann Danielson44:32Hey, I'm going to ask Peyton Manning at the next match.

Brandon Parker44:35Kidding. There you go. Are you do they come to some games? They come to some games that you've got

Ann Danielson44:42some Manning kids play hockey or what? My daughter plays volleyball and she played not this year, but last year with his daughter. I didn't mean to name but it is funny. Hey, it's so cool. So cool. Yeah. He just comes in with his dad earphones on and tries to stay hidden.

Brandon Parker44:59Oh, get, you have to invite him on the podcast for me. Yeah, I will. I will. Thank you. Okay. Good. You got the connection. Thank you. Right. He invests with us. Yeah, for sure. We get him into land investing.

Ann Danielson45:11Me, you and Peyton Manning will team up. We'll have an awesome land investing team. Super simple. And we're in Tennessee. How the wife is in Tennessee makes so much sense. Is. Ashley is. And yep. When we walk in and I'm like, Charlie, he knew your name. She's he's just a normal dad. I'm like, I know. Yeah. Just, yeah, just a normal dad. I'm not a normal mom. Okay. Yeah.

Brandon Parker45:37That's cool. So the the the doctors, lawyers, stock brokers, hockey dad angle is just more investors outside of land. And is that because, I guess it's obvious, land investors want like 50% of deals and they want to be real involved, but you're looking at just outside money where you can probably almost do people a favor to give them a decent return on their money and

Mary Danielson45:59do the deals yourself? Or what's the what's the big picture thought behind that? Yeah, that's exactly right, Brandon. We want to, we do prefer operating the deals ourselves. We don't really want active partners. I wouldn't say. And yet the people in the land biz are there. It's too much of a cut where we, we don't want to give away half the deal. And so yeah, I think it definitely for our circumstances, we either need to get a commercial loan that's just based on us and using our other properties as collateral, or we need to, or not probably or it's probably also and get some investors.

Mary Danielson46:38My situation is that the people I interact with all the time are like the richest people in The Philippines, but their child's teacher. So I can't, it's like a secret. This is like a secret world, the fact that we do land and they know me as Miss Annie and I can't ever broach the topic. But that said, I have one year of teaching left. I've got to get my eleventh grader through school. And then after that, that's a network right there. Very

Brandon Parker47:09cool. Yeah. So they know you as teacher Annie, but not as a land tycoon. So that'll be fun reveal for you at some point. And

Ann Danielson47:20I can honestly say, I feel like this year... Sorry, Anne. I didn't mean to cut you off. Go ahead. Oh, I was just gonna say, and, hey, talk to the hockey dad. And until probably right now, I didn't really feel confident enough, to tell him what's going on. But I do feel like in the next year, enough of them now are like asking me questions. Cause a lot of times I do bring my computer and work the hour before the game actually starts. And then they're like peeking over my shoulder and I just need to set up an old deal and be like, okay guys, come look the numbers.

Ann Danielson47:53And I feel like I might have some takers.

Mary Danielson47:57Yeah. And there was a time when someone was asking if they could invest and they wanted to set up a meeting and I thought, oh my gosh, I need to make a pitch deck. And so I did. And then it was like just super informal and it was unnecessary. But at the same time, I do want to keep it updated as well in case there's someone who is a little bit more professional that wants to see it. Because I do think that the numbers speak for themselves and that as long as we keep it running with our previous deals of the year and our current deals and our prospective deals and our ROI and who we are, I think it's probably good to use and you could use it with a hockey dad.

Mary Danielson48:39Yeah,

Ann Danielson48:40for sure. There's some serious ones.

Brandon Parker48:44Yeah, that's cool. I think there's it feels like there's a tipping point in businesses where like, all kind of entrepreneurs have some level of imposter syndrome, but after enough proving it to ourselves enough times then it, like, for me it's given me confidence to go out and actually, like maybe the first year of running my agency or maybe even the first eighteen months, I had a hard time like really just being confident about what we can produce. But it's like after, like in your case, you've done enough land deals, you've done enough subdivides where now you can go talk to a hockey dad or one of these investors and be like, yeah, I can.

Brandon Parker49:20I'm sure I can make you money. Let's go do this. I think that confidence, there's some sort of tipping point in the confidence there that that comes naturally at some point. Yeah. Absolutely.

Ann Danielson49:29We just needed a few more deals under our belt, I think, to see. Okay. Yep. This is for real. And I

Mary Danielson49:36think there are actually some people in the land community that are very quick out of the gate to blow their horn and trumpet all of their teams and successes and things. But that's not really who we are and that's not really our stage of life. We'll leave that to the young bucks.

Brandon Parker49:57Yeah, the influencers, for sure. What's 2025 look like for you? What are your goals and aspirations? Where are you guys going?

Mary Danielson50:09I think we would like to do like a few big, nice projects that we can spend some time on. And then it it gets rid of the day to day. Our business right now costs almost nothing in terms of overhead. We can just kind of take it easy. No one's depending on us for a salary or an hourly wage or anything like that. So if the money takes a while to come back, we know it's coming, we can wait out the markets and we aren't leveraged so we don't have the clock ticking on the interest.

Mary Danielson50:49So I think we're okay to slow down, go big, dig in, try a few new things. And I think that we almost did an entitlement deal last month that I think we probably could have, but I don't mind that we said no, because I think we would prefer to, yes, we wanna try new things, but slowly. And so right now our new things are just going through the county approvals and doing a road, not a chip and tar road or anything like that, but just some excavation and working with a partner Yeah, getting so I think just slowly add on, but we're not really, we're not racing anybody.

Brandon Parker51:37How far do you how far would you like to go? I mean, are you... Would you go all the way through entitlements and maybe even building at some point? I mean, how far do you see it going possibly? Or do you have a vision that you wanna stay just in a certain part of land?

Ann Danielson51:53I mean, I would say never. We definitely weren't gonna go below five acres and we weren't gonna go to the count. So I think, honestly, going back to the very beginning of when we started, I think each property is so different and if it calls for it, then that's maybe where we go.

Mary Danielson52:13Yeah. Yeah. And I think it's true. Like we we've just kind of pivoted with the deals. But in terms of building, I think if we were going to do something like that eventually, it would probably be something more passive. Like we actually almost looked at a truck parking situation as well too for like big rigs, like something like that isn't super heavy in infrastructure management. Yeah, but maybe something more of a long term hold.

Mary Danielson52:46And that is, I would say self storage would be as building y as we'd want to get. Yeah.

Brandon Parker52:53That's something I see kind of common, the self storage or the contractors garages and that type of angle. See people grow into that sometimes. That's cool. Have we bounced over anything quick here or anything that you'd like to recap or that we skipped over that have happened in the last six months or that are going to happen in the next six months that you want to touch on?

Mary Danielson53:15No, I think it's been just a nice chat and that's about where we're at.

Brandon Parker53:22It was like a nice Christmas chat. We're just like, feel like we're drinking tea. We've got the Christmas tree in the background. We're vibing. I should have a fireplace going or something. That's awesome. Would you like us to sing? Yeah, yeah. I I like like the piano back here. Do you see my piano? Yeah, yeah. Mary, you hop on the piano and you sing great balls of fire maybe. We'll, there we go. I like it. I jam out here. So two final questions I usually ask. I think that probably like maybe Clay Hepler or someone's coming on next, but do you have a question that you would like to send along to our next guest?

Brandon Parker53:58You always trip us up. I know. I don't want to make it too easy here. We got to stump you at some point.

Mary Danielson54:06Oh my gosh, it's terrible to not be able to come up with one. I'm sure we have several. What's in your mug? No, just kidding.

Brandon Parker54:14Not spiked eggnog, I promise.

Mary Danielson54:18Maybe like for people who are working in a lot of markets, what's the benefit of doing that? Because I think we obviously are as small as you can come. And I think we actually haven't looked up and thought about what would it be like if we were to branch out. So I would wonder about that. And then I would wonder what new tools have made the biggest impact in their life in the last year?

Mary Danielson54:50Because I would say I've definitely become a dinosaur in the last year and I haven't really stayed on the edge of the new tools. And I mean, we used AI somewhat for writing contracts and stuff, but I think what tool has had the biggest impact on their land business?

Brandon Parker55:09Oh, I want to answer that one, but I'm gonna tee you up with the next question while I answer that one. Next, the final question, it's two part. One, it has to do with Twitter because Anne loves X so much. One is if you could send a message out to all the land investors on Twitter, what would that message be? And then the other would be if everyone, all few million people on Twitter can see the message, what would those messages be? As far as tools go, I've been really hyped on tools lately because we're building out our CRM in GoHighLevel, and they just came out with some AI integrations.

Brandon Parker55:45And they're going... And we hired on an AI expert and a GoHighLevel engineer, and we're building out follow-up systems. So AI generated follow-up text messages, emails, and then if we... If it's a landline, we're sending an RVM, a ringless voice mail, and then taking inbound calls and programming a, conversational AI, like a phone assistant that'll talk to them. And basically all those things, text, email, RVM, and conversational AI, trying to book appointments.

Brandon Parker56:22So it's like a giant lead nurture system that we're building so we can take thousands of these old sitting leads and then use this... All these automations to to follow-up with them and book appointments. I am super excited about that. That's a really fun tool. I... Tools is... That's up my alley, yeah. Is awesome.

Mary Danielson56:44And it... Like, hearing you talk, I can feel, my eyes going, oh. Because we have the exact same problem with old leads in our CRM. And the way that we've dealt with it is when people say, I'm so broke. We're like, here, do you want a list? Here, do you want

Brandon Parker57:00Yeah.

Mary Danielson57:01People? But then that's okay too, because then if they do make contact, then they do call us back and say, yeah, got ahold of him. Yeah, you still want to sell? And then we're back in business. I guess there's two ways to skin a cat. Yes.

Brandon Parker57:15We that's cool. We're definitely opposite ends of the spectrum on that. That's why I love talking to both of you because it's so cool to see this, the grassroots movement. There's a cool what's his name? The land, I think it might just be called the land investor. Shoot. He was on my early podcast, but he was like, he's just a land developer. He operates literally in just the two counties that are near him in... I don't, he didn't even want to give the state. He was super anonymous, but he just does similar to what you do, but he just operates in two counties and he does everything from purchasing land all the way through developing and then works with builders to build on it and just is fully...

Brandon Parker57:53Every piece of property is out walking around and, like, just very high touch. And, yeah, tea is cool. So That's awesome. Yeah. Anyway, that was one of the early podcasts if anyone wants to go remember something that can't there. Yeah. So if you had one message for all the land investors on Twitter, what might that be? I'm gonna repeat

Mary Danielson58:13our answer from the first time. Just read this podcast yesterday to make sure that we didn't just tell recycle old stories because that's so boring when people do that. But I know the first time you caught us off guard and we needed a lot of think time. I think I said live free and then free is what, how free applies Thank to kind of. Yeah, not, we said it and Mary said, believe, believe it can happen and believe you can do it with a hell of a lot of hard work. And yeah, we don't mean to put those together. Last time I think we said it doesn't mean throw a gun in your truck and pray to Jesus that it's all going to be okay.

Mary Danielson58:48Instead, it really does, I think we are living that we don't really care what other people are doing. We're living our own way of being free and believing that we can make it work.

Ann Danielson59:01Absolutely. I agree. I think mine would be just like baby steps to big change. I feel like that's been our since we started and I feel like even going into 2025, we aren't gonna take a giant leap into something. And I think it's the very tiny baby steps that we've taken have created big change for us, pretty big change.

Mary Danielson59:25So baby steps. Yeah. Keep your head down and do your thing and keep working and believe and do the baby steps because really it's just all in the daily grind. Yep.

Brandon Parker59:37Wonderful. That's a wonderful note to end on there and congrats to both of you. I'm so pumped that I got to talk to you a few months back and now see you just growing and doing awesome stuff. And I can't wait to talk to you maybe in June or something to see what's going on at that point. We'll see. Maybe you'll be building like a little mini apartment complex or something. Who knows?

Ann Danielson59:57Never

Mary Danielson59:58say never. Thank you so much, Brandon. Thank you. Appreciate it. So fun talking to you too. And good luck with all your calling. We might be calling you about calling in the new year. Oh, that sounds exciting.

Brandon Parker1:00:10Let's see what the new year brings. Where can people find you online? Where's the best place if they want to ping you or talk to you? Probably the easiest. We still have our one identity on Facebook. We're Mary Ann Danielson.

Mary Danielson1:00:23That's an easy way to send a message. And I also am on Twitter or X as Mary Ann Danielson. As long as they don't kick you out. Been in some battles lately. Think those two are probably the best. Yeah. Perfect.

Brandon Parker1:00:41We'll put that in the show notes for people and wonderful talk to both of you again. That was awesome. Great. Yeah.

Ann Danielson1:00:48Yeah. Merry Christmas. Right. Thanks. The Legends of Land show.