From 30–50K to 200K Months: The Sales & Systems Behind Nicholas Staley’s Land Business Explosion

Brandon Parker00:00Welcome to the Legends of Land Show. Today, I'm joined by Nicholas Staley who scaled his land acquisitions business from 30 to 50 k a month to over 200 k a month in less than six months. A lot of this by building a sales process, tightening lead targeting, and turning a lot of hustle into repeatable systems. So we're gonna dig into how he did it and from the grind of eight hours to where he's at today. And welcome to the show, Nick. Good to see you. Thanks for having me. Yeah. Sure. Absolutely. Well, I love talking about business and hearing how people did it.

Brandon Parker00:31So how'd you go from when you were 30, 50 up to some of these bigger months you've been hammering out lately? Yeah. That's the the biggest question, isn't it? So

Nicholas Staley00:42as far as going from the thirty to fifty k a month to 200 k a month, we're basically seeing... I mean, it's a marketing and sales business. Right? It's not a land flipping business. And so we heavily invested into our sales, our our coaching, and we saw a huge increase just from that. We didn't even scale marketing at this point. We saw a huge jump, and we're going from, like, one to two contracts a week to... Sorry. One or two contracts a month to one or two contracts a week within, like, a two to three month period. And that was just, you know, investing in a sales coach took us a long way.

Nicholas Staley01:18And then as soon as we saw this momentum, we instantly, you know, increased our marketing spend, and, you know, the rest is, you know, history. We're just doing the same thing, and we just keep rinsing and repeating.

Brandon Parker01:28Are you doing the sales yourself, or you have a sales acquisitions manager? What's that look like? Yeah. So I'm closing as of today. I'm still closing myself.

Nicholas Staley01:37So we had an AM all summer long, and that was really nice because you can take a step back and, you know, look at the business. You know, you're not working in the business. You're working on the business. But, unfortunately, we had let them go about three weeks ago now, three or four weeks ago, and we've seen a huge increase in our our acquisitions lately. So it's cool to see that our funnel wasn't broken. It's just, you know, our closer, unfortunately, was, you missing some opportunities.

Brandon Parker02:02Yeah. I talk to people about that a lot. When we look at closing cold call leads, they're like, what's the number one factor? And it's just the person on the phone. Like, if you can if you can close or you can know... It's not even, like, a hard close. It's more being able to negotiate and just be... You know, drag deals over the line. So what's your... When you talk about the sales training, what do you think the key pieces of the sale process are that you you nail that makes the difference that doubles basically and not lead you close?

Nicholas Staley02:31Yeah. So I think the urgency that I have compared to other closers, you know, if the seller says, hey. Give me a call on Monday. I'm trying to get that closed on Friday. Right? Let's say it's Thursday. No. Give me a on Monday. We'll work it out then. I think a lot of closers, they're like, cool. Call you Monday. But if I'm, you know, really trying to emphasize, like, hey, man. Like, let's hop on the phone tomorrow. Like, it's all about, you know, the speed. Right? Because time kills all deals. I've lost so many deals from that. So I've... I know I've learned enough to implement it.

Nicholas Staley03:02You know, the sooner you can get them to sign, and, obviously, you wanna get them to sign live on the phone, I mean, huge game changer.

Brandon Parker03:10Yeah. The the if someone's saying, hey. I'll talk to you on Monday. It's it's not because they just, like, have something to do. It's because in their mind, there's some sort of reason they're not doing it right now that they haven't figured out yet. And so he just set them free back into the world. They're just not gonna do it because they already know the reason in their head. So got them on the line. What what questions do you ask when it's like, hey. I'll call you on Monday. What questions do you ask to figure out, hey. What... What's really going on? What's the blocker that this person's having? I mean, super situational, but, like, yeah, like, no worries.

Brandon Parker03:42Like, you always wanna acknowledge the objection,

Nicholas Staley03:45and then you wanna really isolate what's going on. You're like, yeah, no worries. Like, I'm happy to talk to you on Monday. Like, do you really think it's gonna take down? Like, what exactly is, like, holding you back right now? And then they're like, oh, I wanna talk with my my wife. Now it's a partner spouse objection versus, like, a smokescreen. Because you wanna change the smokescreen to an actual objection that you can tackle. So now if it's a partner spouse, now we know, like, we'll we'll handle that. Or if it's price, then we handle price. So it's... You really wanna just uncover. Because the worst you can get is, like, you don't want maybes. You don't want smokescreens. Like, you want a yes or no from the seller,

Brandon Parker04:15if that makes sense. And how do you... What are the most common objections you see here, and how do you address them specifically?

Nicholas Staley04:24Yeah. So, I mean, I gotta talk with my wife. I'll think about it. You guys reached out to me. Like, what's your offer? Like, that... Those kind of things. I think everyone hears that all the time. And there's so many different ways you can handle it, which is the cool part. Like, there's not one right answer in sales. It's just, acknowledge the objection, handle it, isolate it, and then move on from there. So you want me to handle, like, one by one, like, Yeah. I'd love to hear the how I gotta talk to my wife. Yeah. Look. Totally understand. Like, what do you even think she would say if you were to sell the property? Like, you think she'd be against that?

Nicholas Staley04:56And then usually, they're gonna say, like, oh, like, I don't think so. So usually, I guess I should preface. I prehandle objections before they even come up. So one of my first questions once we get to, like, the... Our offer call is is there anyone else on title or just yourself? And they're like, oh, just myself. Got it. Like, anyone else... Would anyone else need to sign off before we could move forward? They're like, oh, I need to talk with my wife. Now I know the wife objection will hit when I get to, like, walking through the PA. Because, like, you wanna preannual? Like, you think she'd be against you selling the property? Like, oh, no.

Nicholas Staley05:26No. I'm the main decision maker here. Now I know if they bring it up again. Like, I know, like, earlier, you mentioned you're the main decision maker here. Like, what exactly you you want your wife to look at? Like, always wanna make sure she's on the same page. Like, got it. Like, you think she'd be against you selling the property for your 50,000? And, like, I can take whatever their actual motivation is, which I find out later in the call, and they're like, I'll loop it back in. Like, like, you think she'd be against you paying off this mortgage? Like, oh, no. Of course not. Like, perfect. And if I were to put this offer in front of you, like, would you actually consider it? Would you still wanna sit on the property and talk or talk with your wife?

Nicholas Staley05:57Oh, no. Let's let's just get it done. And I'll ask for their email and then close them. So it's, like, kinda like you wanna... Basically, give them the nudge and then ask for their email again or, like, ask... When you consider selling it, or, like, do you still wanna... Then throw in whatever the objection is. Like, you still wanna talk with a realtor. You still wanna talk with your

Brandon Parker06:17And then half the time, they're like, oh, no. Like, I'd... I'd sell it. And, like, what's your email? You get them on their their email and walk them through the PA, and then they just sign. Mhmm. That's what I've seen. So And so it's a a step... It's it's a baby steps with agreement at each baby step as opposed to, like, you're ready to sign the offer. It's like, well, I mean, if if we got this in front of you, would you even be able... Would you even be willing to sign it because you've got through this objection? Yeah. Of course. Okay. What's your email? And then, okay. Now we're walking through the PA, and then you get to the end, and it's like this natural point of, like, everything is out of the way at this point.

Brandon Parker06:51It's just clicking the button. Yeah.

Nicholas Staley06:54Yeah. Go ahead. No. For those that are asking, like, what if it's actually a wife objection? Then you're gonna schedule a call with the wife. Right? But do you think she's around to get on a call? I'd love to chat with her just in case she has any questions. And you really wanna push, get on the call with all the decision makers. So if it's a cousin, it's a brother, sister, wife, husband, doesn't matter. Get them on the call. It's so much easier to close if everyone's on the call.

Brandon Parker07:16So that's that's my advice. When I look at sales, I feel like there's this... I almost feel like I'm helping people make a decision. It's like, I know this person. I'm not trying to talk someone into it who's not interested or it's not gonna work for them. Mhmm. But there's people you know it works for, and they just have decision paralysis. They don't quite know how or what they're... They don't even know themselves why they don't wanna sell it. I was just saying that. Yeah. They just know, shoot, man.

Brandon Parker07:46I've held on to this for ten years. I've never taken action on it, and I have no plan for it. And it's gonna sit another twenty years, and I'll probably never do anything with it. Like... And it's just... It's helpful for people to come and say, like, kind of, hey. Let's let's do something so you can get on with your life because you're not doing something with this. I promise. You know? You can... You get... You can feel that and help. Yeah. What do you... What's the money objection? How do you look at that? As far as price?

Brandon Parker08:18Yeah. I mean If they want more. Yeah. Shoot. You're offering me $50. Like, I've always thought it was worth $75.

Nicholas Staley08:25Yeah. So that's when it comes down to, like, having multiple tools in your tool belt. So first thing I'm gonna do in the price anchor until I can't get it down anymore. And then once I do that, I'm gonna go into either a double close pitch or, like, finance or, like, whatever that next, you know, your tool in the tool belt is. So if it's price, let's say you want 75. Like, got it. And, Brandon, just to understand, like, you wouldn't even consider an offer under 75,000. Like, am I getting that right? You're not... You're gonna say yes or no. Right? I'm gonna loop you down until... Usually, I do it twice. Yeah.

Nicholas Staley08:55I might take 70. Yeah. Gotcha. And, like, just wanna understand, like, you wouldn't consider an offer under 70,000? Yeah. No. No. I mean, no. I... I'd have to be there for for my wife. Gotcha. And then I'm gonna go into the double close right there, but, gosh. Like, is there anything else preventing us from working together besides the price of the property? Mhmm. No. That's it. I just need enough. Gotcha. So we could get you 70,000 when we can do the deal?

Brandon Parker09:18Yeah. If I got 70,000, I'd be happy.

Nicholas Staley09:20Can I ask, like, are you in any kind of rush to sell it? I mean, not really. I have held... Had it for ten years. Boom. Like, double... That's, like, the the top track for the double close, like, all the... And I wanna preface this came from Ajei Sharma. So I joined his inner circle, and it basically taught me a lot of what I currently know.

Brandon Parker09:40Yeah. Ajay Sharp. I've... I went to his event. I saw you at his event. Yeah. You got an award in his event actually for Yeah. Closing so many deals so fast. Congrats on that, man. That's so cool. Yeah. Yeah. I went to his event. Actually, my, my conversational AI is trained on a lot of kind of nuanced things that Ajay says because he's figured out a lot of those things like that talk track he just said. And, yeah, Ajay's great. His sales sales, actually, our biggest client is, one of our Ajay's students too and crushes.

Brandon Parker10:14So, yeah, Ajay's knows what's going on. Do you think that that's the biggest I mean, you already said that's the biggest lever in land is being able to negotiate. I would call it negotiate more than sales. There's, like, some sort of... It's it's sales tactics. It's also just this negotiation process because, ultimately, how much money you make depends on what you buy the property for. And so being able to negotiate and price anchor low and come up a little bit, have tools in your tool belt, that's where you can make a $100 on a transaction or, you know, $75.

Brandon Parker10:54And that's a that's a big difference. And so how do you think about that? Like, squeezing an extra $5 out of a of a deal versus getting a deal done.

Nicholas Staley11:05Do you have any mental models around that? I mean, yeah. It's like you want to obviously get it for as cheap as you possibly can on our side, but it still has to make sense for the seller. So I like that's one of the issues we actually had with our previous AM is he trying to just hit his KPI. You know, he just wants the two contracts a week, and he's willing to sacrifice, you know, the... Some some of our offer. Like, he'd come up pretty quick. And for me, it's like, there's there's no... We don't need this deal. Right? Like, so that the mindset is like, this deal will not change my life. I will be totally fine without this deal.

Nicholas Staley11:37And when you come out with this mindset of... There's there's no scarcity mindset. It's abundance mindset. You have this different tone, and, like, you... The way you control yourself on the call, and the sellers, they don't sense that salesman, you know, mindset. They don't hear that, like, you know, whatever they call, you know, the salesman, you know, tone, whatever. They sound like a normal human just having a conversation with the seller. And so when that happens, they open up, then you get more of this motivation because most people don't even find, like, what's the actual root cause.

Nicholas Staley12:13That's the hardest part in land. Most of our leads don't have a ton of motivation, at least at first. But then when you get them to open up because you don't sound like a salesperson, you find out there's actually motivation. They owe money somewhere, or they wanna fix up their house. They wanna go on a trip. There's some... There's always something. Right? Like, 30 or $40 would help anyone. Like, even it doesn't, like, I'll take it. I need... Like, everyone everyone could use that for something. And so just finding that motivation, pulling it out, and then, like, having them admit that's their, like, their issue right now helps bring that price down another 5 to $10.

Brandon Parker12:52I look at sales as a... Almost like this dance where you're trying to get to know them, help them out from being in their shoes without ever hitting that sales wall where you, like, tried to sell them. You know? There's like this... You can feel just this little press in a question the wrong way where they're like, oh, they're trying to sell me. Bang. And then there's this wall. Like, you're not kind of working with them to figure out a solution anymore. You're trying to sell them, and they're trying to stop you from selling them.

Brandon Parker13:23And sometimes it's just one sentence phrased the wrong way, and there's there's so much nuance to that. And that's that's what's interesting to me about sales and negotiation is you can go back and listen to a call and find the point. Like, even just a word that, oh, that's where that's where we went sideways. And, yeah, there's there's a lot there. So that's cool that you're hitting on that. Any other, like, eighty twenty, any other big things that you use in sales or think that press you over the line?

Brandon Parker13:55Tonality.

Nicholas Staley13:56So that what you just mentioned, you know, if you say one wrong thing, it's more about how you say it than what you say. And, like, everyone says this, but they don't actually listen to this advice. Like, if you're not using, like, upward and downward inflections in your calls and you're not changing how quickly you're talking, like, you can go really quickly, but then you gotta slow down. Right? Especially, you wanna match, like, your seller. If you're an older person, you can't talk a mile a minute. Like, I've I've done a lot of call reviews, and you're listening to this call... This this closer is, like, going at this crazy pace, and you got this old, sweet old lady, and she can't keep up.

Nicholas Staley14:28You gotta match your your seller, and you gotta use your tone. I think that's huge eighty twenty. Besides, like, actually going and finding sales coaching or, like, someone to get your sales game up, make... Making sure you're sounding like a real human. Like, you wouldn't talk to your friends. Like, hey, man. How's going? Like, you're like, hey. What's up, dude? Like, you're an ad like that. No. Emphasis.

Brandon Parker14:50Mhmm. Tonality is such a art form also. It's the... A little bit of the high to, like you just said, to build rapport, but then the low to to show that you know what you're talking about. Yeah. And those things are... There's so much nuance. I mean, people can do sales forever. That's why AJ can have an entire seminar about, you know, an entire conference around sales. So great call on the tonality. Let's talk about your ops a little bit.

Brandon Parker15:23When you started and you were at 30 to 50 k, what'd your team look like, and then did it change as you scaled up?

Nicholas Staley15:30Yes. So that was... We had a setter. I was closing. We had a texter. That was about 50 to 75,000 texts a month. Actually, that was 50,000 texts a month before sales coaching. And then we got the sales coaching, and that pretty much took us off immediately. So once we got into the the coaching, we saw, you know, a higher close rate. We're getting bigger deals too. And then we went to 75,000 texts a month, 100,000 texts a month, and just... And we just keep going up. The ops, so we had we had a texter, setter, I was a closer, TC, and me, my business partner.

Nicholas Staley16:05So that's what that happened, like. And as far as what changed from, like, going from the 50 to, like, 200 k is just closing a lot more deals and then increasing the volume. We pretty much kept the same team. Besides, we added an executive assistant to handle all the deals. So nothing really changed from from that jump. And now we have another text server. We have another setter. As of right now, that's that's the only change.

Brandon Parker16:31What's a setter look like? So if you're texting and then a lead comes in,

Nicholas Staley16:36how's it... What's the setter's job, and what's a qualified lead? So their job is to get on the phone as quickly as possible. Our expectation is within five minutes. And their job is to make sure this is a property we wanna buy, and then make sure they get an asking price from the seller. So when I see my notes or your closer sees the notes, there's a name. Who does... Who's... Who are you talking to? What price do they want? And then is this a property we'd actually buy? If that... Even if they want, like, 500 k, and my comp say I can only offer a 100 k, that's an offer that I'm making.

Nicholas Staley17:10And some people are like, that's a waste of time. It's like, one, you gotta practice on the bad leads. And two, you made the offer. Like, something crazy might happen. They come back to you a month later. You get that deal that no one else did. So it's... And you're you're getting the extra reps. People are like, how do get good at sales? Like, make more offers. Even if it's, like... Even if you know you're gonna get shot down, like, what do you have to lose? That's kinda how I see it. But from there, that's considered a qualified lead, and that's when... That's... A gross lead is what's pushed to the CRM, and we call a net lead is once my setter gets off the phone the appointment.

Brandon Parker17:45So for them to book the appointment, they have to say an offer. It doesn't matter what the offer is, but they... Or they've set a price that they'd sell for. So your criteria is they will sell the property for the right price. There is there any other kind of any extras in there? Or... I mean, obviously, they are the... Obviously, they own the property. They're one of the key decision... Or, you know, they own the property. They're on title. Uh-huh. They've set a price. They're willing to sell anything else.

Nicholas Staley18:15As long as it's a property we'd buy. So as long as it's not, like, completely landlocked or, you know, all wetlands. Like, if it's a property that we would buy and they did sell it for a certain price, that's... We call that a qualified lead, which isn't really qualified. Like, in our business, that's a qualified lead.

Brandon Parker18:32K. How about, like, a timeline or motivation? Do you need to know, like, a reason they might sell or when they might sell?

Nicholas Staley18:41We we usually... We push for that on the setting call, but that's not... The only requirements are what I I mentioned, so it's... It can be very vague still. But, obviously, my... Like, my setter's trained to, like, price anchor as low as possible. We're even considering selling, like, before we tax them. Like, obviously, they're trained as far as on that end.

Brandon Parker18:59Okay. Interesting. And how are you price anchoring low? Are you getting a AI comp report from Land Insights or Land Portal, and then you're having them price anchor low off of that, or how are you getting that number?

Nicholas Staley19:12So they'll just... They'll ask the seller what they want for it. K. And then once they get price from the seller, they're just gonna do exactly what I do. I got it. Just wanna understand, like, you wouldn't even consider an offer under x price, and they're gonna loop until they can't do anymore.

Brandon Parker19:26Other than that, just same question. Like, hey. You wouldn't even consider lower. I mean, that's the lowest you would take. Yeah. And then once and then once they hit that wall, yeah, that's it. Yeah. That got it. So so if we could get to that price or x price, like, we can do the deal? Like, yeah. We could do the deal. Gotcha. Okay. So then we had lock them in at that price. Oh, that's clever. Okay. I like that. Because then it... But you might have someone a $100,000 property, and you've kinda tried to price anchor them low, but they're still at 500 k. But then you're still gonna come in and get eyes on it and then make an offer at a 100 k, even though they said lowest they would go is 500.

Nicholas Staley20:03Yes. Which sounds counterintuitive, but we will... If they want over a million and there's that large of a gap, then we actually don't push that. Thus, we do have a cutoff. So if they want us that much more than our offer, then we we drop it. But let's say they want 500 k. I'll make my offer to one, you know, a 100 k, or I can double close at, you know, 200 k, seller finance at $2.20, like, something like that. So it just depends what the numbers look like. Yeah. Yeah.

Brandon Parker20:33Is there... Do you have a a form... I know most people don't have this. So if you don't, it's fine. Do have a formula for, like, how much over it would be? Because I know there's, like, the million dollars. It's... So that's kind of a sign. Like, I'm not serious. Like, if they say say a million. So...

Nicholas Staley20:47Yeah. I You want over 500 k of our offer, then we don't do it. So if they wanted 600 k, they wouldn't consider an offer under 600 k. And my offer is 100 k, like, then I wouldn't take it. Okay. Deal. 5 x. Yeah. But if they want 500 k, I'm still gonna make that offer. Like, the odds of me closing them are super low. But it's practice,

Brandon Parker21:05and you never know. Yeah. For sure. I mean, that's... You're doing great. So it's like, I'm actually really interested about how you're approaching it because I have so many angles that I've tried on that, but I haven't tried that. And I probably will, to be honest. That's what's worth testing, obviously, since you're crushing it too. How do you go into that? How much information do you have about the comp when you go into that? Do you go in and dig in for, like, a real comp, or what are you using when you go in as a price that you're negotiating off of?

Brandon Parker21:38Yeah. So my comp... So once my seller gets off the phone, they're gonna book an appointment for at least an hour later.

Nicholas Staley21:44Ideally, it's the same day, but usually an hour later. It gives our comper plenty of time to comp the property. So the comper's gonna use land insights, comp the property. They're gonna drop their, you know, comp sheet for me. I'm gonna have a range. So I'm gonna pull up the property and land insights and land ID while I'm on the phone, but I don't... I'm not really looking at, like, comps. I'm just making sure everything looks good. I'm making sure, like, we can... If we can subdivide it, then obviously we can pay more. I'm So just looking for, like, different angles that my team might miss, but I already see my comp sheet. So, technically, like, I don't even pull up the comps. Like, I just... I pulled my offer sheet, and then I just make the call.

Brandon Parker22:18Moving fast there. I like that. Are you... And to be real specific there, are you just using the number that comes from land insights, or is your comper going in,

Nicholas Staley22:29like, adding extra comps or nuance to that comp, and how much, like, new... How often are they changing it? Yeah. They don't... We definitely don't use the AI value. So we're gonna pull five comps that are closest to our property, the, you know, proximity, features, recency. You know, Sumner Healey teaches that. So that's what we go off of is, you know, what he teaches as far as comping. And then he's gonna add up the price breakers, you know, find the average, the median,

Brandon Parker22:54and then go from there. Yeah. Yeah. Sumner's got, like... I love his I love his system for comping. That's what I've... Where I learned as well. And, like, yeah, Sumner Sharp, Land Insights is rad. Land Portal, awesome too. And, yeah, Sumner's on point. Okay. So they're comping. So you have, like, you have a pretty legit comp. You have a comp team. Who who does the comping on your team? Because you've got a

Nicholas Staley23:22So my texter Yeah. Your texter does it. Okay. Yeah. So we have our texters. We just hired another one last week. So they're both trained, send out their text in the morning, and then they'd comp once they're done. Like, or they're, like... It's kinda, like, back and forth. But, like, as far as, like, sending out all the text is pretty quick. It's... They gotta respond on the people, push the leads, and then comp. So it also gives them, like, a variety of, like... So they're not just, like, responding to people all day. So we've seen that my my current texter, he loves it. So that's... We've just implemented that. It's like a dual role.

Brandon Parker23:53Yeah. Where's your... Where are your texters from? How'd you hire them? Philippines,

Nicholas Staley23:58online jobs, PH. And you basically just had to filter really good.

Brandon Parker24:03Yeah. Dude, I've hired I've hired hundreds of people on online jobs. I... It's like a... I mean, you get a 100 applicants. What's your filtering process? Like, how do you do that? Yeah. So our SOP for that is basically a Loom video

Nicholas Staley24:17of them talking about anything. Like, it doesn't matter, but you have to filter out all the sale. Like, you gotta find the gold. So we'll have a video where they can... All the low performers will, you know, self deselect onto the interview process. And then usually, we'll go from a 100 candidates to, you know, maybe 10 to 15. Yep. And then from there, I'm gonna send them, you know, an Internet speed test, you know, a couple other things. And then once we see, like, on the personality test or speed test, I'll push for interviews. So of those 10 to 15, I'll get on interviews with three to five. And then from there, usually, I'll I'll pick two or three of them for a second round interview, and then I'll hire the best one.

Brandon Parker24:55Nice. That's, like, almost exact numbers that I hit too. It's like you take a 100, and then you end up on the phone with five of them by just giving them some simple tasks. At this point, I used to give them, like, actual tasks, but then chat GPT made it so those tasks were, like... Became irrelevant because they were just doing them like that. So then it's like, okay. Loom video on, like you said, on anything that weeds out everyone. Something I add at the end that is interesting is if I get two or three in the first interview and they're like, okay.

Brandon Parker25:27We're nailing it, then I'm... Then I hire all three of them part time. And just the first week, like, probably kick one out, and then week two, like, sort the other one, and then have... Send one full time. Because a lot of times, like, people can sound good and Mhmm. You know, they feel like there are people who go get it and they learn quick and they will be in Slack active and all this. And then you just see, like, real quick how how they really perform, and that... That's, like, makes it clear... Real clear.

Brandon Parker25:57So That's interesting. I like that. Yeah. And, also, there's this theory I've heard that I really like. I've been starting to lean into a little bit about... A lot of times for positions, especially like texting or a sales position, it's better to have a team of two people who are part time than one person who's full time because they will naturally compete against each other. And then if one's absent, the other person can pick up the slack. And if one quits, there's not like a single point of failure. You have someone there and you can hire, you know, and so Interesting.

Brandon Parker26:28Yeah. I've been kind of using that where I can. So where was that from? Is it from, like, getting things done or something? What time? No. I've picked that up at some book and started using it. Was like, yeah. That's a lot. It's awesome. Let's talk about your transaction coordinator. What do they do?

Nicholas Staley26:50So, basically, I try and be as hands off as possible from a contract signed because I'm managing the team. You know, I got a lot of a lot of things on my plate. So from there, the TC is going to send it to title, open escrow, make sure everything looks good. They're gonna babysit the title company, and she's also going to do weekly follow ups with our sellers. So especially on double closes and longer closing time frames, if you're not reaching out to the seller or have AI do it or some... Something... Someone has to reach out and let them know, hey. We're still here for you.

Nicholas Staley27:21Just wanna let you know, like, no new updates at this time. Just letting you know. So that's her job. So every single Friday, she's texting every single seller in escrow or inventory or under contract in escrow. Hey. Like, this is what's going on. So that's that's kind of... As well as an intro message like, hey. You know, I'm, you know, x y z with, you know, our company. Just wanna introduce myself. I'm gonna be your point of contact until we close on this. And that way, it's like you hand it off from the acquisitions department to the the OTC.

Brandon Parker27:53Yeah. And that extra touch weekly is is so clutch because from the seller's point of view, they just sold something on the Internet, and then it goes dark for two weeks. And they're like, what just happened? Like, a bunch of second thoughts. Like, maybe they wanna, like, find the escrow company and call them and cancel, you know, like, all kinds of stuff. So just that, hey. We're taking care of it. Here's a really small update is is a great, great call. Actually, I haven't heard of that either.

Brandon Parker28:23I mean, I'm sure that there's people who do that naturally because it makes sense, but I haven't heard of people systematizing that. So I'm gonna, like, put that one in my back pocket for sure. Good call. I learned the hard way. Yeah. Tell a tell a good story about

Nicholas Staley28:39someone just backing out because they'd Yeah. No. It was my second deal ever. And, I was able to close the deal, but it was super stressful. So I locked it up as a double close, and I didn't know what I was doing, obviously, at this time. So I lock him up, send us a title, list it for sale, and we finally find a buyer. Two months later, I haven't reached out to the seller once. I locked it up. Sixty days, seventy days go by. I'm like, hey. We're supposed to close on this in, two weeks. Just wanna let you know. And it was it was just a nightmare.

Nicholas Staley29:11I'm trying to, like, let them know what's going on and, like, all this stuff. Like, he thought it was, like, completely, like, fizzled out. I'm like, no. No. Like, we're we're gonna have a contract. And so from there, eventually, was able to get them show up for the title company and close, but it was I thought I was gonna lose the deal. And for my second deal, I was a college dropout, and, like, this is, like, my avenue. I have to make this work. It was, like, 12 on the line, and I was like, oh my gosh. Like, at the time, it's a ton of money for me. A ton. I mean, still, you know, it's 12 k. And so from there, it's like, I'm never having this happen again.

Nicholas Staley29:43So every single week, you're gonna get a text, email, like, something.

Brandon Parker29:47So this just can't happen. So Probably almost became more work than closing the deal just to, like, follow-up and make sure... Or excuse me, than getting the deal to just follow-up and make sure it closed after it was already there. You know? Yeah. Interesting. How's the... Talk about just your mindset a little bit because you just mentioned right there kind of offhand, but the... Going from a college student to then getting a little bit of money in the bank to then getting, like, a good amount of money rolling, how's that just affected your general life or your...

Brandon Parker30:21What's your philosophy around that?

Nicholas Staley30:23Yeah. I mean, it's... I'm super grateful. Right? Like, this... It's been pretty difficult to to build this business. I've been super lucky. I have a great business partner. I have great people on my team, and I'm just... You know? Thankfully, I didn't give up because there's a season in in this business when I'm first building it where it took me, like, seven months, and I got two contracts. And I was cold calling all day by, you know, with my dialer, and it was really brutal. And, thankfully, I didn't quit, and we we saw some momentum, and we're we're at where we are today.

Nicholas Staley30:55As far as mindset, like, you only lose when you quit. Like, just don't quit. And just always iterate. And that's what I've been doing. Just find something that works. Like, there's no need to get fancy. You don't need to do all the fancy stuff. Just find something that works. Stick with it.

Brandon Parker31:12Your business made me think of the more better new mental model that I use often. The... You find something that's making money and just do more of it. This is a Hormozi thing. Yeah. That's where I got it from. Yeah. For sure. And you you totally nailed that. Such a good picture of you're texting and it's working, and so you do more of it. Yeah. And then the big shift was for you was doing it better when you started. You're not like, oh, I hit a cap here with texting. I'm gonna go start doing cold calling now. You hit a cap with texting, and you're like, I'm gonna do this better.

Brandon Parker31:44And then you started nailing sales and double tripled from there. Yeah. That's a... Such a sharp lesson for other entrepreneurs of how more better new actually works. Yeah. And that's that's fantastic.

Nicholas Staley32:00Have you considered doing a new avenue outside of texting, or what other marketing are you doing or considering? Just text. So we just do texting, and I've done... It's been difficult to, like, you know, keep the whole teams... Like, we're just doing texting because people, they wanna make their business less boring, but, like, business is extremely boring. And the prop... More profitable your business, the more boring it's gonna be. Like, it's gonna be the exact same thing every single time. And, like, we thought we were gonna stop at a 100,000 texts a month. Like, once we do that, we'll do cold calling. We'll do mail. Like, we just scale the 200,000 texts a month.

Nicholas Staley32:31Like, we have so much more room to scale. Like, we can probably three x our texts, you know, our marketing spend right now before we have to, like, max out texting. Like, we can probably, you know, five to 600,000 texts a month before we actually need to move. When we get there, it'll be crazy, but then we've done more. We can't do any more. We can't get any better, and then we're gonna do new. Then we will find the next avenue.

Brandon Parker32:56There's also hidden efficiencies in your team operating better. If you keep hammering texting, like, textures are gonna get better. Your compers are gonna get better. The transitions between departments is gonna get cleaner. And those are hidden profit levers that are easy to overlook. You know? And so, that's great. I recently learned from Robin Seb from the land pilot that there is 19.3 vacant pieces of land in The US.

Brandon Parker33:2919,300,000. Really? Yeah. So when you hit your 500 k texts a month, you're gonna press through a serious amount of land. Yeah. What are your markets like? Like... Because you're obviously not gonna call all 19,000,000.

Nicholas Staley33:47Yeah. We stay away from the West Coast, the East Coast, but everything in the middle is pretty much what we hit. We're not very selective. We have... It's quite a... Oh, I think it's a decent amount of marketing. I'm just wondering if I'm texting right now. Yeah. And so as long as it's a piece of land that's got a road frontage and it's not in the middle of nowhere, like, we'll buy it. So it's kinda... Not not a really good answer to that, but it's like, hit everything. So Anything not on the coast with road frontage.

Brandon Parker34:15And is road frontage a filter you use, or is there's an easement to the property just not landlocked?

Nicholas Staley34:21Yeah. As long as it's not landlocked. So if we can get an easement or there is an easement, then we're cool. But we've we've dealt with other stuff, and it's just not cool. Yeah. How deep will you dig into a sticky deal? Like, if you gotta negotiate easement or if there's, like Yeah. Seven people on contract. I don't know. My my partner is super good with, you know, messy title, easements, all that. I hate that stuff. Like, I want leads to call and close and run a team for them to, you know, get the leads in, get them closed from there. If there's, you know, messy title, I I do not like dealing with that stuff.

Nicholas Staley34:53So we're we're working... Obviously, you always get messy title stuff. So working, like, one or two right now that are very messy titles. But if we get them through, they'll be, like, a 100 k, 150 k deal. So I'm really hoping we get it through.

Brandon Parker35:06How do you and your partner split up tasks? Like, how do you...

Nicholas Staley35:11What's that org chart look like? Yeah. So I essentially, you know, run the the day to day team. I'm, you know, operations and acquisitions. He's more of TC and, like, dispo development. He's always, like, checking our coppers. Like, I'm more of, like, listen to our salespeople's calls, listen... Like, look at the team's KPIs, you know, every single Friday, and we have a stoplight report. So I'm doing, like, all, like, the... I'm, like, a ops manager slash, you know, closer right now, essentially.

Brandon Parker35:37Nice. How do you end up linking up with your partner, and is that a, like, a... Someone you knew previously or someone you met through land, or what's that? How do you make... Find a partner like that? Yeah. So I got I got super lucky. So I posted in

Nicholas Staley35:53Sumner Healy's Discord, actually. So I just bought his course. I've learned how to price markets for mailers and do all, you know, the admin work. Because before, everyone's... Was sending direct mail. That was the play. And so I I posted in his Discord. It was like, hey. I can do x, y, and z. I'm looking for, you know, someone to intern with. I had no play. I just... Like, some... Something told me, like, I should just post this and, like, just see what happens. And so I had, like, three people reach out. Two of them immediately fizzled away. And then my partner, he reaches out, and he's like, hey.

Nicholas Staley36:25Send me a Loom video. And so I basically was, like, qualifying myself to him. I sent him, like, three Loom videos. I was still in school at this time. This was... Was this end of... I think this was end of my sophomore year of college. It's hard to remember. But I sent him the Loom videos, and he basically told me, he's like, cool. Like, here's here's what you'll do. He gave me access to some of his tools, and it went from there. And then slowly went from, like, an intern to, like, hey. Like, let's try texting. And we tried that as a go.

Nicholas Staley36:56We just... Let's just see what happens, and it formed to a partnership. That was about a year ago. So

Brandon Parker37:03Big time. What's your tech stack look like?

Nicholas Staley37:08So we use SmarterContact. We we switched from launch control to SmarterContact recently, and we've seen a huge increase as far as response rates and leads, which is huge for us because, you know, the more leads you get, the more offers you can make. The more offers you make, the more the more deals you're gonna close. So our response rates, you know, completely dipped. You know, they were under 10%, and we're trying to figure out why. And long story short, SmartContact has, you know, local area codes. And so from there, we just went all in. So we AB tested both of them for, like, two weeks, and we're getting double the lead flow.

Nicholas Staley37:40We were seeing, like, four to 5% response rates in module control at this time, and we started way higher. And just over time, the numbers, you know, it gets worse and worse. But, yeah, we've made the the switch, and I'm I'm super pumped. It's gonna be an amazing 2026. That's what...

Brandon Parker37:56Keep it up. That's... That'll be cool. Yeah. Absolutely. What are your conversion rates like if you're pushing through? How many leads from texts do you personally hit up per day? And then what... How many convert?

Nicholas Staley38:08So when you're texting, we're doing 10,000 texts a day. Leads pushed per day, it's it's really variable depending on, you know, if we're doing a follow-up campaign, like, markets. We can say twenty and twenty five new leads a day. And we are... Our old KPI, obviously, before went from 100... Before we went to the 200 k text month, we're at 33... And, like, it's like a decimal. Like, 33.7 leads, text leads per contract. K. So for for 33 that we push towards CRM, that's a a contract.

Nicholas Staley38:42And then my setters, obviously, are gonna qualify, it's basically for every, like, nine nine and a half offers I make as a contract.

Brandon Parker38:49Okay. And those 33 leads per contract gross leads or net leads? Gross leads. Yeah. So net leads is one of nine,

Nicholas Staley38:57and then gross leads is one of 33. Okay. So out of those 33 leads,

Brandon Parker39:02you're getting 25 a day. And then out of those, you're getting, like, probably three net leads that you look at personally?

Nicholas Staley39:11If that's if that's what the math is. Yeah. It sounds like the math is. Yeah. That...

Brandon Parker39:16We're we're close enough there to get it. Okay. That's cool. I like it. One lead per 33 gross lead. One contract per 33 gross leads.

Nicholas Staley39:25So it's been a huge scaling offer. So if we can make 10 off, you know, that's one contract, essentially, we're, you we're being conservative. So we're we're making 40 offers a week. That should be four contracts every single week, you know, over, you know, a long enough period of time.

Brandon Parker39:38And then KPIs you're measuring are gross leads, net leads, offers made, contracts signed. Exactly. And then talk time. Yeah. Talk time. What's a talk time for your lead managers or your setters, I'm guessing?

Nicholas Staley39:55We do. Yeah. Both our closer and our our lead manager. So our lead managers, we look for, like, an hour, anywhere from an hour to an hour and a half of talk time for our lead managers, and then then you make, you know, around a 100 dials a day. It's for our lead managers. And then as far as closing, we're looking for about ten hours a week of talk time. It's like a really good closer. So you want two hours of talk time a day. So that's that's all we're looking for. What tool are you using for your phone calls to measure talk time and all that? Everything is... We're switching up all of our, like, internals right now.

Nicholas Staley40:28So currently, we use OpenPhone, but we're we're making some changes by this right now. Okay. Cool.

Brandon Parker40:34Any reason for the changes?

Nicholas Staley40:36We don't like our current CRM. I won't name it, obviously, but we just... We can find a better CRM out there. So we're looking at a couple options right now. And we're basically trying to, like, systematize this for a long term. You know, if we wanna bring in two closers in the next, you know, six to eight months and scale up the team and marketing, like, it has to be optimized a little bit more. Mhmm. So we we need to focus a little bit more on that. Yeah. Interesting.

Brandon Parker41:01Let's talk about 2026. It's gonna be a big year. There's gonna be... You've got processes you're gonna scale into. What do you see happening with the whole business in general and shifts coming towards us?

Nicholas Staley41:16Yeah. So, I mean, more people... I've seen a lot of people leave this industry, like, more than ever, which is... For me, it's inspiring because, you know, we're seeing... If we invest in ourselves, building our team, and we're pouring our... Like, into our business, like, we're gonna see that growth, and we're gonna see the gap from, like... The people that don't invest in themselves and their business, they're gonna stay here, and the people that do, they're gonna move here. And there's gonna be this huge jump, and it's just gonna separate the whole the whole industry. Like, this isn't, a side hustle. I guess this is a full business, and people talk about this.

Nicholas Staley41:48I've I've... You I've heard other podcasts. Like, like, you gotta have a real business. Like, that's just... There's no question about it. Like, if you're just trying to do one or two deals a year, like, you're you're gonna mess up stuff. You don't have the sales skills. You know? So if you're if you're talking with the seller that I'm talking to and if you don't sound like you can get the job done compared to me, like, they're not gonna go with you, and you gotta sound like you know what you're doing. So I'm I'm seeing... It's getting it's getting more competitive for those that are less skilled, and it's getting less competitive for those that are more skilled.

Nicholas Staley42:22Don't know If that makes sense. But that's that's how I see it.

Brandon Parker42:26Absolutely. There's a technology aspect and a systems aspect to that as well, which upskills people. So there's the skills that you're talking about, like running a good team, being killer with sales, and then there's also some things you talked about, which is the processes. And then there, you can add in their technology leverage because there's gonna be some major shifts, and there already is with, like, land portal, land insights, how they are using AI to do comping, the...

Brandon Parker42:58How much quicker we can get good data and we can get more refined data, how quickly we can pass those leads through with good notes and context, how quickly we can get back on the phone, measure things like, talk time. And, I mean, that's... That seems simple, but that would be so advanced five years ago. And now it's becoming table stakes. Like, if if you don't if you have a high acquisitions manager and you don't know contracts sent, contracts signed, talk time, your lead ratio, your lead to close ratio, and you're not optimizing those things, then there's people who are, and they're gonna be just crushing it.

Brandon Parker43:34And so I see a lot of that in 2026 as well, who can operationalize and separate themselves and become, like, a professional business owner. And the side hustle is gonna become a lot harder. You know? Oh, yeah. For sure. As we kind of wrap up here, what are your final thoughts, or what are maybe some big chunks of your business or philosophy that we might have glossed over that you wanna dive into real quick?

Nicholas Staley44:06I mean, I guess for those that are starting, like, it's it's definitely harder than you currently think it is, but eventually, it will get easier. Like like I said, I was cold calling. I actually tweeted about this a couple weeks ago. I cold called. I was doing about a thousand dials a day on a triple line dialer. I did that for seven months, and I got two contracts. And just the other day, I got five contracts in a day. So it's like, when you when you don't quit, you will see, like, this huge arbitrage that you will get from your skills, and then just knowing how to talk with people, knowing, like, what is the deal, what's not a deal.

Nicholas Staley44:40Like, it just gets so much easier over time. It doesn't mean it's easy right now. Like, it's still really difficult to own a business, but it's it's gonna... It's way harder than you think it is to get here, but once you're here, like, it's so much so much easier than it used to be.

Brandon Parker44:54It's like a lot of life. There's compounding returns after just massive amounts of work. Everything gets a little bit easier. That's the whole effect of, you know, overnight success that took years to get there. It's because someone just continue to do the same thing, put money in the, you know, their personal bank of getting better or something, and all of sudden, it becomes easy. It looks easy. And so it's cool cool to see how you've evolved like that. It's exciting. Well, last question.

Brandon Parker45:25If you could put one x post out that everyone in the world would see, short and pithy, what would you say? What would your message be to the the universe?

Nicholas Staley45:38It's a good one. I I don't do a ton of those posts where it's, you know, trying to, like, instill this emotion in people, but I posted, like, this... Literally yesterday, it hit me. It's like, everyone's always focusing on the future. You always think I'm gonna have this when I'm older. I want this life. This is what I want. Everyone always focuses on the future. Like, one day, these are gonna be the good old days that you're gonna be talking about to other people. So just remember, like, live in the present moment like this.

Nicholas Staley46:09And building is... Like, it's so fun. When you look back, know, you're like, man, I I love building this business. I love the struggle. I love getting cussed out at. Like, in the moment, it sucks, but you're like, I promise. Like, this is gonna be like, man, like, I I missed that. So that's... Just live in the moment.

Brandon Parker46:27Beautiful note, Dannon. Thanks for coming on the show. Nick, you're a legend. I look forward to seeing what you do in 2026, and I'm sure we'll cross paths again and talk soon. Thank you. Thanks for having me.