500 Deals in 2 Years: The Real Scaling Bottleneck

Brandon Parker00:00Welcome back to the legends of land show where it's my job to deconstruct the tactics of world class land investors. I'm Brandon Parker, and today I'm talking to Ron Apkey, the cofounder of Land Portal and Land Investing Online. Ron, welcome to the show. Good to see you today. Thank you, Brandon. Appreciate you having me on. Yeah. Absolutely. From where you sit today, what's actually changed the most about doing land deals compared to a few years ago?

Ron Apke00:26I think it is the way that people are dispositioning deals. And when I say that, it's like different niches. There's so many different niches today in terms of subdividing, in terms of improvements. I think the amount of value add deals in this industry is... Has 10 x, probably more than 10 x in terms of there's so many investors that are focused on that. We're pushing people to do that. And what that does when you add value to land, it allows you to communicate with more sellers.

Ron Apke00:57More sellers fit your buy box if you're able to increase the value of the land. So I think that's the number one thing that I've seen really change over the last twenty four months or so.

Brandon Parker01:06That's actually true. I hadn't thought about that, but when I I get that question a lot with people, they go, hey. What are the what are land investors who are successful doing? I say it's people who have a broad tool belt. You know, they're doing owner financing. They can put in a road and a gate up. They can clear brush, or maybe they're subdividing, or they're just fix... They're flipping, straight flipping. Sometimes they are double closing. Like, the people who have that full tool belt seem to be crushing it. And like you said, it's that that shift where they're opening up all kinds of of extra deals there.

Brandon Parker01:43When you look across thousands of land investors now, what do you think separates the ones who consistently get deals from the ones who are staying stuck in that same vein there?

Ron Apke01:55Another good one. I think there's a couple of things. I'm gonna go through a couple of things. I think number one is kinda urgency. Like, I think you... I have to want it. Like, there's so many people in this business. There's so many people in life in general who, like, wanna be successful. Want... Like, you have to have urgency with the way you do things. And that's just like, maybe sometimes it's pivoting really quickly. Maybe sometimes all the time. Maybe all the time, it's calling sellers back really quickly, being persistent with sellers, problem solving. And that kinda transitions to that other thing that I just said is problem solving for sellers.

Ron Apke02:29I think the people that I interview on my podcast, I'm sure the same to yours, the most successful people, the people that are making multiple 7 figures per year are problem solving for sellers. They are not, like, thinking, like, okay. How much money can I make in this deal? Like, how can I solve? What is the gap between me doing this deal? Like, between the gap with you and the seller and doing this deal and, like, where where where can you help solve the problem? Sometimes, like you said, it's seller financing. Sometimes, it's a different kind of deal structure with the seller. Sometimes, it's double quote, whatever.

Ron Apke03:00There's... Creating... Solving problems is a big part of sales. And that... That's what we're doing when we're talking to sellers. So those are the two things. Number one, urgency and just being willing to do things in this business, take action, not sitting on your hands. And then number two is really problem solving for sellers to make more deals happen.

Brandon Parker03:21Do you see that bias towards action as something that people can learn or start doing, or do you think it's something that people naturally have and they know it or don't know it?

Ron Apke03:33I think it's a... Definitely, it's not like something you have or don't have. I I don't believe that. It's like something like if you're... If you wanna... If you eat like crap and you wanna eat healthier, like, can't just eat healthy one day and then be like, I'm eating healthy. Like, habits are built. And I think just like taking action, like, one thing, like, I'm... I try to do myself personally is when I tell someone something I'm going to do, I do it every single time. Like, I'm very particular when I... Every time I say, if I get off this podcast with you, Brandon, like, I tell you I'm gonna send you a follow-up email.

Ron Apke04:07Like, I'm going to do that. If I'm not gonna... If I I don't wanna do something, I'm not gonna say I'm gonna do that thing. So same thing, like, taking action, like, it's doing it repeatably. Every day... I think a lot of times taking action is just following through with your word. It's one of our core values in our business. And just, like, think about it. Every time you tell someone that you're gonna do something, every time... Even if you tell yourself you're gonna do something, follow through. And it's just repeatedly following through every single day, then you build that habit of, like, this is just who I am now. But it's not something that can be built in a week, two weeks, something that has...

Ron Apke04:38It might take six months for you to really build consistency and taking action.

Brandon Parker04:43I call that closing loops effectively, and that's one of our core principles at our company also. And it's... It builds trust. If I say, I'm gonna do this thing, then I go do it, and then I let you know, hey. That's done. And that happens every time. Then if there's five people operating in that same way, it's gonna keep moving forward. If you've got three of those people not closing loops and then the other two having to check back in, it becomes a mess. And so that's a huge just across, I guess, life in general, not just not just land, but, yeah, solid take there.

Brandon Parker05:20What... What's the most... What do you think that most land investors are spending time optimizing right now that you think actually doesn't matter that much?

Ron Apke05:30I wouldn't say most. I think new people focus on their... Just like everything that doesn't make them money, if that makes sense. Like, so many people like CRM, this, that. Like, if you're brand new, figure out how to get deals. That's all that matters. We are land investors. We're making money doing land deals. Like, I promise you, your company name doesn't matter. If it matters that much, you can change that down the line. I think too many people, especially people first getting started, get entrenched into the things that don't make money in a business.

Ron Apke06:02There's so many little things in a business that don't move the needle. There's only a few things that really move the needle. And for land investors, it's marketing. It's sales. Like, those are things that really matter when you're when you're first getting started, and really as you grow too, obviously, you need to put systems in to scale, test different marketing strategies, but especially new people, the distraction on things that do not matter at all or matter 1% versus focusing on the things that matter 80% of making this a business.

Ron Apke06:34I don't know. It... It's a big thing. I I get frustrated when people when they come in and they're worried about their website, they're worried about their name, every... Like their company name, everything like that. Like, let's worry about choosing a market. How do you wanna market to these sellers? How do we close deals? That's all that matters when you're starting.

Brandon Parker06:51A great example of Pareto principle there where what's gonna have the biggest outweighed effect, which actions are gonna take the big... Are gonna push you forward the fastest. And, yeah, your website isn't gonna be a giant chunk of getting you land deals. So get that big stuff nailed. Mhmm. I I I was, in my life, been very susceptible to that because I'm a creative. And so I love the branding and the building websites, I've built businesses where the first six months, I was just doing stuff and no money coming in the door.

Brandon Parker07:23And people tell you that lesson,

Ron Apke07:27and sometimes you just have to learn it for yourself. But I've learned that in the most drastic ways, and I try to tell people. But Yeah. Sometimes it clicks, sometimes it doesn't. Yeah. You have to tell yourself that. I have to tell myself that lesson five times every single day. Like, no. This is what I'm doing today. Like, Ron, get back on track. Like, this doesn't matter. Like, and it's just, like, consistently doing that just, like, rewires your brain to doing the highest output jobs, the output task in the day.

Brandon Parker07:57That is a a huge tactic for my mind also, and I think for people to to take away, like, continuing to practice what's the biggest bottleneck, what's gonna chunk us forward right now, where's my focus need to be. I know that... I heard Elon talk about how he manages his companies because you look at him, you're like, how does he have the boring company? He's shooting rockets in the space. He's got Tesla robots. All this is going... How is he... How is that even in the realm of possibility this guy's running all those giant companies?

Brandon Parker08:29What he does is he flies into a location, say, you know, SpaceX. He identifies the number one bottleneck. It might be something on the factory floor. And then he goes and he puts every ounce of his effort into eliminating that single bottleneck, and then he unblocks the team, and then he leaves. And they're they're free to run now. He eliminated the giant bottleneck, and then he goes hits the next place, and he just circles around the companies doing that. And that's such a good example of, on a smaller level, what I can do in my mind, which is, okay.

Brandon Parker09:02What is the thing that needs to be focused on? Let the other fires burn. Team will take care of it. Like, what does... What do I need to move the land business forward if I'm a land investor today? Love that concept. In that same vein, if you zoom out across your evolution because you've been in land for a while and you've seen it change a lot from flips to bigger deals to education, what problem do you think has kept showing up no matter the people strategy or your strategy?

Ron Apke09:33The problem has showed up. So, yeah, we've been in land about six years, and, yeah, a lot has changed in the business. One thing we always... Like, a big part of this business is funders. Like, when I'm talking about doing land deals, it's funding partners, everything like that. I wouldn't say it's necessarily been a problem, but it's always a huge focus. Like, when you're doing big deals, if you're trying to take down 7 figure land deals, subdivides, everything like that, like, you need to have amazing relationships with partners.

Ron Apke10:05So, again, I'm not saying that's been... I mean, if you're scaling up, money act... Access to money can always be an issue, to be honest. Like, you go up from a $10,000 deal when you start to 50 to a 100. Like, that's a different, type of investor that you're using, and then you scale up to multiple millions of dollars. So that is something you need to always be working on as a land investor in general as you scale up. Again, not probably from the start when you're first starting, but it's always something that's a focus. Because if your business is growing, the amount of capital you need access to needs to continually grow.

Ron Apke10:39So, again, not necessarily a problem. It's just been a focus of ours that does not really change.

Brandon Parker10:44How do you think a best way to solve that? For example, a land investor is getting rolling. They've done three or four deals. Now they nail a big subdivide, and they outlay a 150 cash, and they have a big return coming six months down the road. How do you... What's the best way to address that? Where do you go get money? What should the money cost? Like, what's that actually look like?

Ron Apke11:08I'm talking about this kinda backwards. I think the the hardest people to get is the first time you're getting money, and you don't need to be... Get land investors. Get some people, you know, friends, fam... Anything like that, whatever. But the way to actually solve the problem long term is by giving unbelievable service to your partners when you're doing deals. Communicate with your partners. Make sure... Do your best. Everything in your in your power to make every deal with a money partner a good experience for them.

Ron Apke11:40And that doesn't necessarily mean they get the best return. Like, there's going to be times when you do a deal with someone, like, I... I'm so... Like, I really wish this turned out better. I did everything I could to maximize the profit. Unfortunately, just the market changed. The the market didn't react like I thought it would... To react. But if you leave every deal like that, even the deals that don't go as well as you think, those money partners are going to introduce you to more people or you ask them. And that's how we've scaled. Like, you just ask people. Like, okay. Do you know anybody else? Do you have any more access to capital? But what I see the opposite happen is when new people experience people disrespect or underappreciate the money that is given to them.

Ron Apke12:20Like, yeah, it's it's paid for this deal, whatever. I'll communicate when I communicate. It'll sell when it sells up, and those are bad experiences for the money partners. I've been on the money side of that where I've partnered with people, and they haven't communicated well. I just think they throw it up on the MLS, and, like, they they don't do everything, and that's where the money can stop. Because money partners talk to other money partners, and it can it can go dry really, really fast if you don't treat and respect your money partners well.

Brandon Parker12:51It would almost... It's almost like treating your money partner as a as a client or as as a partner where you are... Let them see in transparently into what you're doing, give them updates, even, like, mistakes that you've fixed, activities that you've done so they see activity. I know that running an agency, you have some things where it will be we do a bunch of things, but if we don't tell people what we're doing, it feels like nothing's happening. But maybe 20 things happened, and so it's important to kind of, in the land business, I'm sure, let your partner know, like, hey.

Brandon Parker13:27I'm filing this paperwork. I'm doing this, and we're waiting on this. Do you think that most money partners prefer some sort... Almost over communication as opposed to you looking at it like you don't wanna bother them?

Ron Apke13:43We customize it a lot of times. Like, we'll... I... I'll ask them. Like, listen. Like, I can give you updates every week. I can give you updates anytime something happens. I can just tell you, like, every month. And, like, customize it for them. Like, how how do you want me to communicate with you? Sometimes they're gonna be like, just do your best to sell it. Let me know if there are any issues. But, like, customize it for them. Like, how do they wanna be communicated with? If they wanna be communicated with every week, send them a weekly update. That's kind of our default thing is sending weekly updates.

Ron Apke14:15Any issues or what what status, what are what are our buyers look like, anything like that. And then you go all the way to some people just like their experience with us, and they just want an update once a quarter when it sells or any issues. So I think customizing it, like, having some default like this is how we communicate and then customizing. But the main thing is they need to feel like... You need to actually be doing everything in your power to sell the land, and they need to feel like that. If if you're doing it, they're going to feel that. They also can feel the opposite where you're not doing anything to sell land, and it it comes off like that.

Brandon Parker14:48Mhmm. On selling land, dispose a hot topic these days. I know that people are putting more focus on how am I gonna get this sold? What did I buy it for? And what's your strategy on dispo? How do you get a property sold quickly, and what's that look like?

Ron Apke15:07Yeah. I was just talking to somebody, and they're like, yeah. When when it's hard to dispo, it's probably a little easier to acquire, so you gotta be a little more careful when you're buying, a little more aggressive with pricing when you're buying. But, I mean, my number one thing when I'm thinking about how to sell a property, number one is how do I get in front of as many eyes as possible? What does that look like? Is it a realtor? Is it a street sign? Is it sending some mail out to local buyers... To local potential buyers? So, I mean, that's what it is. Like, getting it out in front of as many eyes as possible is, like, how I look at it.

Ron Apke15:40Then I create a game plan for each property, and it's gonna be different every time. I'm always gonna get it on the MLS. I'm always gonna get on land.com. I'm always gonna put it on Facebook. Those are nonnegotiables as far as that. Sometimes I put it on Facebook and land.com before the MLS so I can kinda gauge interest, gauge pricing. Maybe avoid a realtor if I sell in the first three days, but getting in front of as many people as possible, make sure you're posting the right MLSs. Don't be cheap with pictures or anything like that. Like, get good photography, but you gotta price right. You gotta price aggressively. We personally try to undercut the market.

Ron Apke16:12If five acres is selling... If five acres is on the market for a $100, I'm not going to put my property on the on the market for a $100. I'm gonna undercut it 7% to really get all those buyers who are interested in five acres to my property before they say, like, okay. My property doesn't work for them. They're gonna go call this other one. But, yeah, as many eyes as possible. Be aggressive with your pricing. Like, you don't wanna... A property that sits for six months and you got a price cut is going to cost you a lot more money than just posting it at the beginning for $90,000.

Ron Apke16:43Let's say that $100,000 property I just talked about, and you list for a $100,000, it sits, and you got a price cut, and then you're gonna get low ball offers, and then you're selling for 80 opposed to posting it very aggressively at 90 from the start, and then you have all the interested buyers and you sell it in a week, two weeks, whatever it is.

Brandon Parker17:02What do you do on the sales end if you're not using a realtor, you get inbound calls coming for... From Facebook, land.com. Do you have any sales tactics as far as, like, who's answering the phone, how they're getting a contract signed, and and kind of pushing the sale, or or you just kinda let that happen naturally? If someone's interested, they'll make an offer. Yeah. So historically, we've had a employee on that position. Right now, we don't have that. I I take... It's a lower volume right now in terms of, like, we're doing bigger deals, lower volume.

Ron Apke17:33But, yeah, you just gotta communicate. Like, you gotta answer your phone. You gotta treat it like it is sales. Like, get them the... Really selling real estate is just getting information, just giving them the information. Yet the end, if they're interested, there's some negotiation that goes on. But at the beginning, it's like, get them all the information, answer their questions timely, know what you're actually trying to sell. A lot of people call in or a lot... I see a lot of people call in other places, and they're, like, asking them. They don't know the zoning. They don't know what they can do with the property. Like, don't tell a realtor or a buyer, like, yeah, you're gonna have to call the county to do this.

Ron Apke18:06Give them the information you have or find the information. So that's the number one thing is... And and I always tell them, like, call the county to confirm. This is what I've been told. You can put mobile homes on it. You can subdivide it once or whatever the situation is. Like, what... Ask them what they're trying to do with the land and then see if it fits on us. They opposed to, like, just overselling something. Answer their questions is my advice.

Brandon Parker18:30Yeah. I was actually a real estate agent for a few years and did fix and flips, but that was the thing. As a realtor, I set my apart... Myself apart by answering the questions and knowing all about the property. And... Or excuse me, answering my phone and know... Like, being able to get information to them quickly. It was like you're not trying to sell because someone's already gonna spend a $100 just because you sold them on it. They're gonna spend because you gave them enough information. You got all the questions, answers in their head, and then you made it simple for them to complete the transaction.

Brandon Parker19:01So it's like greasing the wheels, basically.

Ron Apke19:04It's not like those people that you don't answer their questions for, it does not mean that they didn't wanna buy your property. It means that it's a lot... I don't know if it's a lot or some of the times. I know it's greater than 0% of the time, though. They might have wanted to buy your property. You didn't answer the questions. They called the next one, and that property fit for them. So it... It's... Answering your phone is a big one that you said too, Brandon, though. Where

Brandon Parker19:27do you think things have sped up the most inland? Where have we gotten far more efficient, and how much leverage does that give brand new investors when they come in now as opposed to when you started?

Ron Apke19:40A lot. Yeah. I mean, just AI in general. Just being able to talk to ChatGPT and... On a daily basis, whatever it is, like, that can help rate your listings. There's a lot of different ways just to use that. I think targeting niche... Niches with with data is a very... It's much simpler. Like, when I was first getting started on data tree and, like like, I wanna target subdivides, and I'm looking at road frontage and unchecking check boxes. And, like, it just... That side of things has become a lot, lot more efficient where you can target the actual type of land you want.

Ron Apke20:11Those are probably the biggest things, honestly. Trying to think efficiencies. There's a lot of CRMs out there that can be very valuable. There's a lot of different ways to market. But I think with all the different ways to market, it also has slowed things down for some people because they jump from thing to thing. They're unable to scale their business because they're not like, alright. This is the best thing for my business or this is... Whatever the aspect. Like, maybe it's Landai AI, and they're going to you, Brandon, for... They're going to you to... Like, you get them leads, everything like that.

Ron Apke20:43They're doing a 100 other things at the same time, which isn't a bad thing necessarily, but I also think the... So much mark... People struggle to choose marketing, honestly, nowadays. But efficiencies, I think targeting the right type of land, marketing, there are so many good ways to market now. Land AI does a great job in terms of that. But, yeah, there... There's a there's a lot of different things that have changed and become more efficient for sure.

Brandon Parker21:06It's... It is interesting to think about how much leverage people have. It could almost be dangerous. It's like 100%. You can go get epic data from the LAN portal quick, and then you could go plug in to, you know, send 10,000 mailers and start a giant text campaign and start cold calling all at the same time. And then all of a sudden, you're like, that... You... Because it wasn't built structurally with intention, you just plugged all the great tools in. You know, people can get overwhelmed quick too.

Brandon Parker21:38I think it's an interesting thing to think about. There's a ton of leverage, and that is generally a benefit. You also get it over their head. Yeah. The the over...

Ron Apke21:49A lot of voices out there too. A lot of podcasts, a lot of educators, a lot of, like... And and it's easy. It's easy, guys. I understand from your guys' perspective listening, if you're just getting started, whatever, like, to go from strategy to strategy, person to person, and, like, you get to the brink of, like, success, and then you don't realize you're about to be there. Kinda like that image of someone mining, and they're close to the diamonds, they stop and turn around. Like, you see that, like, you go thirty days, and you hit a little bit of a roadblock, but you don't push through it, and then you go to the next strategy. And it can be a it can be a big, big cycle.

Brandon Parker22:22That's something I definitely just found in my own business life as well with YouTube. It it... For creative entrepreneurs, generally are learners as well. Yep. And so for people like us, we pop on YouTube and there's 50 different people. They all have great tactical. You got Dan Martell and, you know, you've got, Hormozi and a list of people, Naval. But really, if I'm listening to 20 different opinions and all these random YouTube videos, what I finally had to do is pick my favorite people.

Brandon Parker22:54Like, these are the two people I'm just going to consume and copy what they do, you know, as opposed to what I was doing before, like scattered... Same thing, mentally switching strategies consistently. But that's a great call for for land investors is following... Pick a philosophy and then pop... Following that philosophy to the end and and giving it a shot as opposed to switching consistently is a a huge level up for people in this information age. What do you think that, is a well, actually, hold on.

Brandon Parker23:29Let's stay on that. We... Land investors used to come in, and you would find an advantage, something like data. Like, as you were talking about, you were in data tree, and your advantage was likely at that point as you were doing better, more detailed research. You were finding subdivides that other people weren't finding. Where do you think people can find a competitive unique edge like that in today's market with as much information as there is now? I

Ron Apke23:57think information in a in a market. Like, I I really, really do. I think so many people are hopping around from South Carolina to California, and it's like, what are you doing? Like, you're everywhere. Like, find... Learning as much as possible about a market. I was I was talking to someone earlier today. He was on my podcast, and he was like... He's saying, like, you... It's a lot better to market one market 365 times instead of 365 times or markets one time. Like, you can yield so... The amount of deals you can yield from a single market, people really don't understand until they really, like maybe it's...

Ron Apke24:37Think Hormozi does talk about. He talks about, like, what if you can never get more clients again? What would you do? How would you treat your customers differently? Same thing. What if you could not go outside of this county? How would you yield the most out of it? Like, you turn that mindset on. Not saying you have to do that. Not saying that, but you you... How much more would you understand about that market? How many more realtors would you have relationships with? So I think that is an overlooked thing, expertise in a market. We so many people in our group that are, like, certain...

Ron Apke25:07Their website is all around one state, and it's like, that's what they do. They don't do deals outside of that state. And I think that is something that's overlooked. Local expertise is what I'd answer that with, Brandon.

Brandon Parker25:17Yeah. I've seen p... The... Probably the most successful people I've seen are operating in places they know. You know, they might grow and have a bigger places they know, but it is consistently circling and cycling through similar area. And I have an interesting question for you. This is something I was talking with one of our clients about. They're doing our service, so they're pulling in leads from cold calling that are prequalified.

Brandon Parker25:49They're wanting to go deeper into markets. So it's like, okay. We're calling all these places. Now we wanna do more. We're not gonna ramp up call volume because that would mean we have to leave this state. So we're doing as much as we can with with cold calling right now. How do you think about tagging on or combining the marketing channels, texting, cold calling, mailing sequentially, like, how those fit together.

Ron Apke26:16Yeah. I think what you got... I mean, you guys do a really good job filtering through leads, getting solid leads, but I don't think there's necessarily, like, a... Everyone's different that I talk to. I talk about some people... I talk to some people who text first, then they cold call, then they send mail, and there's not any really rhyme or reason. It's just hitting the same people multiple times that you haven't had contact with yet. So I don't necessarily think... I think so there's a lot of different sequences that can work, And, like, you you cold call and then anyone who you cold call that you didn't talk with or you get that list to them, and they're like, alright.

Ron Apke26:47Let's text this list. I I like texting second, honestly. On there, it's a little cheaper. It can get you a lot of leads. It can get you more deals for sure. But I I truly, Brandon, I don't really think there's a perfect sequence, honestly. It's just hitting those people more. Obviously, mail is probably gonna be the most expensive per reach out, I guess, you'd say. Texting will probably be the cheapest. I don't know. But, yeah, I think just following up with them repeated, like, you you get hit with an... I I do it all the time, and I think about it every time I do it.

Ron Apke27:18I I obviously... I buy stuff on... From Facebook ads, stuff like that. I never buy it from the first ad. You know what I mean? Like, you see something like, alright. I wasn't thinking about that at this second. That was a good targeted ad for me, but, yeah, let's keep scrolling or whatever you do. Then you get hit again, like, okay. Maybe I do. And then it's in the back of your head. By that second, third time, like, really is in the back of your head. Same thing with these sellers, guys. This is marketing. We are marketing to potential land sellers. It's not gonna be the first time a lot of the time.

Brandon Parker27:47That is something that... If you're in their inbox, they can look up an email from you or they have something from you where they can come back and remember, and then they see you again. And, yeah, that that repetition matters. And that's almost building trust. Well, another thing we have in the land industry right now is a lot of outbound. So with texting being so simple and, you know, people are sending a million text messages. So a lot of land investors have now got random texts along the way about buying their land, they've seen this before.

Brandon Parker28:22And so I think it's even more important than now to be that person who is consistent, not just one of those random spam that showed up once and they never heard from again.

Ron Apke28:32A lot of those operators are bad, though. Like, I respond to 90% of them. I'll respond to anyone who text me about my lane. I'll respond, and rarely do I get a response the same day. Mhmm. But, like, yeah, it's just a lot of the success is behind the operator, guys, and that... That's something that a lot of people kinda struggle to look in the mirror with. They wanna blame other things. A lot of it comes down to operations and being a good operator. Like I said at the beginning, a lot of times just taking action, consistency, urgency. Mhmm.

Brandon Parker29:01What's... When you respond, what do you... Are you just doing that to get information

Ron Apke29:08for yourself about what the market's doing and and how people are operating and see what tactics people are using? And have you found an interesting Maybe maybe they see a better higher use for my land, and they can pay more. I I don't know. Like, maybe maybe I'll say yes to an offer one day. A lot of times, I just, like, get a feel for... And I suggest people doing it too. I get a feel for the market. I get a feel for response rate, and it kind of solidifies my my mind. Like, yeah, a lot of people say they're texting people. You can send a 100,000 text messages. You don't respond to sellers. Like, after they respond to you, you're not gonna do any deals, and that's the...

Ron Apke29:40That's a bigger gap than I realized. I don't have any clear intentions for it. They just ask me if I'm interested, I'll say, yeah, potentially or something like that. Mhmm. Mhmm. See their funnel.

Brandon Parker29:50Mhmm. Yeah. Exactly. How do you think that affects the sellers overall?

Ron Apke29:58I think it can be draining from, like, a mental aspect of them, especially the people who are interested in selling because there are people who get texts a lot who are interested in selling. They struggle to connect with these potential buyers or these quote unquote buyers. But but I think what really is the real impact is it separates the people that are having true conversations with these sellers. It makes... When a seller connects with you and they're like, I... It's been a it's been a hassle there for... To deal with all these other people and they connect with you, it actually becomes easier to do deals.

Ron Apke30:31Even if they've had 10 or 15 offers, those people... Like, if you can separate yourself on how you do the business, think it just makes so much opportunity because it's a relief to hear from someone who's actually willing to find a way to make the deal happen.

Brandon Parker30:45Yeah. That's what I've... That's my feeling on it too is when someone comes through and actually closes the loop like we're talking about, they do what they said they were gonna do. They respond in a timely manner. It's it's like, oh, this person is actually real. This isn't the other 20 people who set this person up to look so good now because they're just doing what they said. I like the hack of sending a quick quick selfie video. It's just like a, hey. How's it going? This is... I don't I don't do this personally, but we have our client... Or we do this for our clients. But, hey.

Brandon Parker31:15What's up? This is Brandon. Just letting you know I'm the person you'll be talking to. We'll chat soon. Local family owned land business. Just a quick candid video that sends is such a difference from another spammy text that's automated that... You know? So

Ron Apke31:32that's a... I had a I had a salesperson that worked for me for probably fourteen months or so, and he did that in his interview process after... I don't know if it was after the interview, but I still remember it today. He hasn't... Yeah. It's probably been thirty six months or so since that text was sent to me, and it stands out like it does. And I remember that being a reason we hired him, honestly. Like, that was persistence. That was persistence and, like, okay. He wants this job.

Brandon Parker32:00Yeah. I think it's powerful, especially because people are likely so touchy about AI. It's like, is this AI I'm talking to? Everyone... That that question is lingering in everyone's mind. And so sending them something human, they're like, okay. This feels good. Let's go. You know? 100%.

Ron Apke32:19Yeah.

Brandon Parker32:20What do you think is a data point for land land investors that they over index on, but it doesn't necessarily improve deal quality too much?

Ron Apke32:31Like, give too much... They they care too much about a single Yeah. I... The one that's always been since we've been in this business is, like, how many deals per piece of mail? How many deals per cold call? Deals per... Let's just call it deals per leads per whatever it is. Like, I really don't... Like, I care about bottom line. You know what I mean? Like, all that other stuff doesn't matter. Like, if I... I I promise you I could find a way to get a deal per every 100 text messages. I'm not gonna like the land I get. I'm... Like, you know what I mean? Like, I'm gonna get desert squares or something like that.

Ron Apke33:02Like, for me, it's just... I... I'm very bottom line in terms of that. Like, yeah. I want leads coming in. Yeah. I want conversations. Yeah. I want offers going out the door, but you need to... It needs to be your own data that you focus on. Like, so many people, like, compare it to other people doing this business. I get a deal for every 10,000 text messages. Alright. What kind of land are you going for? Because that matters. Like, how many... How much mark... I I I like return on ad spend. Like, I I do like return on how much money I'm spending on ads, but you can't be getting that data in this business over a one week period.

Ron Apke33:36It's not like Facebook ads for an ecommerce business because the... It's so elongated, the cycles. But, yeah, for me, I think deal... We'll just call it deal per whatever your marketing is. I think people get obsessed with that. And then if they hit that number, like, alright. Someone told me it's a deal for every 5,000 mailers. I've sent 6,000, and I haven't gotten a deal. Like, tough luck. I don't know. Figure it out. But, yeah, so many people get so obsessed with that number and try to compare, and then they find out when they're doing something wrong. A lot of times, like I said earlier, you gotta look in the mirror and make some adjustments.

Brandon Parker34:09There's a delayed feedback loop on how useful inform... Like, the the information from outbound isn't immediately useful. You know? You could send 10,000 mailers and then deals start coming back in, but you're not actually gonna know your return on your ad spend until, what, six months down the road. What do you think... When you look at return on ad spend, what timeline do you measure it on?

Ron Apke34:37I mean, you can get a pretty good idea. Like, we always we always have an estimated profit number. So, like, whenever we are get a deal under contract, anything like that, we are estimating our profit. So that can kind of give us a baseline in terms of our return on ad spend relatively quick. Obviously, until you close the deal, like, we're not calculating that or anything. But, yeah, we will calculate a very conservative sale number, and I think you can do it every couple months, to be honest, and kinda backtrack, and then it's always kind of happening. But, yeah, if you become good at pricing land, you become good at comping land accurately, Obviously, you might have to make adjustments online if you like something sells differently, but we always try to be very conservative with our with our price predictions and have some kind of predicted profit really when we close deals and be able to analyze a little bit of return on ad spend.

Ron Apke35:25What I don't like is, like, you send one mailer or, like, maybe you give Land AI one list and, like, I'm gonna I'm gonna calculate my return on ad spend on this one list I sent Land AI. Like, that's not enough data. Like, you need to be getting enough marketing with cold calls. You can say then I don't know what the number is exactly that you want before someone starts calculating data. But mail, should be twenty, thirty thousand mailers before you care about that. Text, it should be probably be 200,000 before you really start looking at that. Mhmm.

Brandon Parker35:53What do you think is a ballpark return on ad spend that could be... And this can be rough, but a a benchmark that people could shoot for no matter which... How they're going about it? I think eight to 12 x is really, really solid.

Ron Apke36:10And I'm I'm not talking about sales. I'm talking about profit. Like, if you... If I send $10,000 on mail, I feel very confident that I can get a $100,000 of profit out of that. Very... Like, I don't wanna say easy. I don't like that word. But, like, that should be something you should be striving to. Eight to 12. Like, I've heard people as high as, like, fourteen four... 14 x. And, again, that's profit number, not sales. I I think it's really... Under eight, you have some issues you need to solve, honestly, which seems crazy because it's such such good return. And if you shouldn't... I'm not saying be upset with it, but you can evaluate and try to improve that number always.

Brandon Parker36:46What type of difference have you seen? You've been doing some handwritten mailers. Have you seen a noticeable difference in response rates or return on ad spend, or do you have any thoughts on how the handwritten's working?

Ron Apke37:02I don't wanna give you anything that's incorrect as far as, like, return on ad spend. I don't probably have enough data to... What what it does... Return on ad spend's not gonna be crazy different. We're paying three times more for our mail, essentially. But what it does, it gives us return on our time. Like, there's a lot less time because it takes less mail, takes less contacts to get a deal. And I know I said don't worry about the number of contacts, but we're talking to less people per deal. We're getting anywhere between a three to 5% response rate on mail opposed to where we we were with, like, standard double window envelopes.

Ron Apke37:36We're getting around point 75% response rate. So response rate's up, and then our deal percentage is much, much higher in terms of that just because we're talking to so many more people. So a couple of things, a lot less hate calls, a lot less people upset because they think we hand wrote the letter, and then just overall, we're just talking to more people per every thousand. We're talking to a lot more people.

Brandon Parker37:58So you said your response rate was around point 75%,

Ron Apke38:01and then it's it's at Three to five. Somewhere between three to five is very normal. Then we also have on top of that our QR code scans, which can add half a percent to a percent.

Brandon Parker38:11Okay. So... And, of course, the same thing with cold calling it, the county that you're targeting, the data matters, who you're sending it to, the type of property. And so it's hard to get, like... Response rate is obviously a range. So I deal with the exact same thought processes, and it sounds like something similar. You're about five times as effective with the operator's time. And so, yeah, the ROAS is similar because you're spending more, but your time is three to five times more effective because less leads are coming back through or your...

Brandon Parker38:49Because your conversion rate's higher.

Ron Apke38:51And you can be... If you really wanna get ahold of someone, like, it can be very, very... Like, if you just have those 100 properties, 200 properties that, like, I want a deal from this list, like, you can be very targeted, and you're going to get a lot of responses, which is nice. If you know exactly what you're looking for, that's where we've seen a ton of success, these bigger deals.

Brandon Parker39:10Have you used those handwritten for selling, like sending it to the neighboring community type thing? We have.

Ron Apke39:17It gets calls. Nothing like crazy, groundbreaking. I think sending mail in general is a good way to sell land, especially if you ex... Have expensive land. Choose... Send mail to people who have bought land in the last twelve months, who have done all these things and, like, just neighboring properties in general. I think reaching out to nearby landowners is a valuable thing no matter how you do it. We've had good responses. I don't know. I don't think we've ever sold a property from it, but it's a very low volume to this date.

Brandon Parker39:47Yeah. What would you do tactically if you were... If someone was gonna get gritty and they're like, I have this property. It's got a river. It's beautiful. It's got a river. It's perfect. It's a high value piece of property, and they want to hit land portal, put in some filters, find the perfect people to sell it to. What filters do you actually use there? Do you filter for people who have an LLC who own land, people who own more than two parcels, people that own a certain value?

Brandon Parker40:17What do you... What would you actually look for? Yeah. I like the multiple. So

Ron Apke40:21short, very short radius, like, very quarter mile radius. I'm gonna hit everyone who owns land. You know what I mean? Like, everyone who owns land, like, I own this property real... Nearby. I'm gonna put it on the market soon. So that's like a different group. That's like anybody who owns land very close. Then you go a little wider, and then you narrow down what the criteria of those people are. So you go wider than you... Like, maybe it's two. Maybe it's they own more than one piece of land, like you said. Maybe it's they've bought land in the last twelve months over very similar acreage. So as you go wider in the county, you wanna narrow down the the person essentially that you're reaching out to.

Ron Apke40:56But the... I find a lot of the buyers are those nearby neighbors. A lot of times we sell land, the neighbors had no clue that we are selling land. Like, you will sell properties to those people in that quarter half mile radius very, very effectively. So that... That's what I'll do. If you're using the handwritten, like, put... We'll put a picture of the property on the front of the car with the price, everything like that, and it... You're... It's going to get opened every single time.

Brandon Parker41:21When you look at a county or a list and you immediately know it's weak, what... What's the number one thing that that tips that off besides obvious... Like, real obvious stuff? But what's something that just kind of is maybe counterintuitive?

Ron Apke41:34You look at a county and go, no. I wouldn't call there or or I wouldn't mail there. In terms of just getting started in a county, like, I want I want recent sales data that's moving relatively quick. Like, especially in today's market, like, I I legitimately will go on to a county and look like, okay. Here's the last five... Three five acre properties. I like five acres, 10 acre properties that have sold because they typically will sell really fast. They're highly desirable, typically. And then if you're not seeing those moving in thirty days going pending within thirty days, it's like, alright.

Ron Apke42:04This is gonna be a slow county. I'm not saying you can't go after those counties, but you wanna buy cheaper in those areas typically. So right now in today's market, I want counties where properties are moving. And I I get on Zillow. I look on different places, and I'm like, here's the list date. Here's the pending date. I like that how short that number is, or I don't like how long it is. And that's... You can get really hand... That's like my last check before I choose a county. Mhmm.

Brandon Parker42:30And the five to 10 acres, that's moving because it's that that has the biggest window of buyers who are gonna use it for a a lot of different things, rural recreational, to build on. Why why do you think that five to 10 acres is the most desirable?

Ron Apke42:47It's probably the acreage range I've bought the most then, to be honest with you. We've done a lot of big deals, but, like, repeatedly... And and it's also the easiest property that I've ever had to sell. Like, I'm not doing a lot of quarter acre, half acre properties. Maybe some of those are easier to sell. But for me, the five to 10, you can have recreational buyers. You can have people who are living there as well. You can have people who wanna put a mobile home on land. So it's a combination. Like you said, I think the buyer pool is really, really big for those acreages. And typically, good land in good areas, five to 10 acres, sell really fast.

Brandon Parker43:21I've seen you talk about absorption rate quite a few times. Can you explain what that is and why you like that metric?

Ron Apke43:29Yeah. Absorption rate is essentially like how fast an inventory is being absorbed over a time period. So if you have, whatever, over a six month period and your absorption rate's 50%, that means 50% of the properties are selling essentially are... In that. So you you want a higher number. For me, particularly, like, it's a data point. Like, all these are data points. Days on market. We have population growth on land portal, population density. All these different things are data points. But absorption rate, I like to be around 60%, but there's other... You need to combine in the...

Ron Apke44:00All the data, I think, kinda writes a story. And I know you're... Obviously, you're a data person, Brandon. But, yeah, all the data kinda writes a story. And I think everyone who's, like, choosing counties, like, you just find what works and make adjustments. You you... Right now, like I said, you want areas where land is moving. I think that's the biggest thing. Absorption tells the story. Sell through rate tells the story. Days on market, everything like that. But, yeah, that... That's the biggest thing, I think. For for your business,

Brandon Parker44:28what would you say your current bottleneck is or a business problem that you're been chewing on this month? Key share in general? Yeah. Land investing or with your with your data companies.

Ron Apke44:44Land investing disposition, like, it is... Like, we are testing a lot of different things. If you... If we're talking another thirty days, sixty days, because we're testing a lot of stuff with selling land in different ways, handwritten mail, everything like that. So that is something that we're kind of getting an SOP behind. We want some results. Like, disposition... If you guys have land... If you guys are trying to buy land, you need a plan for disposing of it, right now. So that's a... I don't wanna say a bottleneck. It's just a huge, huge focus right now because buying land is not that difficult.

Ron Apke45:14Getting deals under contract isn't that tough at the moment. But, yeah, that... That's probably our biggest focus on, honestly, Brandon, and biggest kinda, if you would say, bottleneck. Mhmm.

Brandon Parker45:28And if you were to if you were to be a a land investor who's just getting kicked off, what's your what's your go to advice when people are starting? Maybe they've done, you know, one to five deals. They're they're getting kicked off. What's your what's your go to advice, and what's the thing you tell people most often around that?

Ron Apke45:49I I think the number one thing is marketing consistency in this business. Like, whatever that means. Like, whatever that means to you. Like, consistently will allow your business to grow quicker because if you send... And it can be sending mail every single day. It could be sending every week. It could be cold calls. It could be whatever. Like, if you're consistently reaching out to sellers, it spreads your deal flow out really, really well, like, where you have it. But if you send 5,000 here, 7,000 here, 10,000, whatever, and just, like, it's very random, your deal flow becomes random.

Ron Apke46:21Your cash flow becomes random. Your business becomes far less predictable if you are sending marketing whenever you feel like it, like whenever you're having a good week or you're high on the business. So that's the number one thing, guys, is reaching out to sellers consistently. That's going to create deal flow.

Brandon Parker46:39Something that I talk to people about is in that vein is it's better to send 500 mailers a week and not stop doing that and build processes around intaking and really treating each of those sellers well than it is to send out 10,000 mailers, get a bunch in, have a bunch of panic, and then deal with them, and then sometime in the future send another 10,000. Like, I like the idea of getting a very consistent cadence.

Brandon Parker47:09I feel like that is the core engine of everything else that's gonna happen, and it should... That should just be... Even if it needs to be very low volume, that should be just strategically humming along, just clicking forward consistently.

Ron Apke47:22It it allows you to scale up too really easily. Like, you know when your business is okay to scale up. If you are sending 5,000 mailers... Even if you just... Even if you're consistently sending once a month, 5,000 mailers, it becomes really difficult to scale up. You'd need to be sending at least two times a month your marketing. Obviously, with texting, lot of times, it's like every single day. But have a number and a frequency you're doing it and stick with it, and it needs to be more than once a month, like I said.

Brandon Parker47:49And then you can start building your intake process and your prequalification... Your qualification process and your sales process. And then when you get one and you're starting to do the dispo as well, you don't get overwhelmed by the volume that's still coming in. And so starting slow and methodical, getting the flywheel spinning is something that people overlook. Something like someone like me would overlook very naturally because I wanna start fast. I want... If I was starting LAN today and I didn't know what was going on, I would come in and I'd send a 100,000 texts, 10,000 mailers.

Brandon Parker48:25I'd start cold calling, and then I'd deal with it later. Then then I'd have to start over. So, yeah, I love telling people stuff that I wouldn't do personally because There you go. What, what things do you think that we kind of glossed over here or that we could dig a little bit deeper into that, that you... That we skipped fast?

Ron Apke48:54I think I think high... People hire too fast. Like, I really, really do. I think people try to... I don't know. I think it's... Especially with, like... I don't know, mid twenties people who, like, wanna scale up and have 10 employees and wanna be able to tell people they have 10 employees and they're all $4 overseas employees, and they don't really know what they're doing for their business, but they can tell people they have 10 employees. I think a lot of people hire just to hire. And we were in Savannah together and listened to Christian, rough, roof talk about hiring.

Ron Apke49:26It's just like when you're ready to... Like, hire when you're ready to hire. And when you are ready to hire, like, have a very defined role for what they're doing. Their first ninety days for... Should be almost scripted out what their first ninety days do. But don't be like, yeah. I'm gonna hire just... And I think it's because some employ... Overseas employees can be cheap. So it's easy to, like, okay. It's $4 an hour, $6 an hour, whatever it is. Doesn't matter. I'm just gonna throw more people on top of that. Your business is not making more money just because you have employees. Like, you need to be putting people in proper seats.

Ron Apke49:58And it also can kill culture if you hire people just to hire, and you just have a bunch of people doing god knows what. So, yeah, I think that's something that... I guess you could say we skipped that. We just haven't talked about it yet, Brandon. But, yeah, overhiring is a constant podcast idea or not idea, podcast guest thing. They they scaled up to 10 people. They scaled back to three people. So many people say that, and they're making more money with three people.

Brandon Parker50:26It's the same thing as the marketing concept of just a slow, steady cadence that's methodical and scales responsibly. I would relate that to hiring. Hiring is an absolute art form onboarding a new person, having them learn what they're supposed to do and getting reporting and how to delegate and what they're actually doing. You could hire one person, even a $4 an hour person in the perfect role. They have the perfect traits.

Brandon Parker50:57You onboard them. They come into your culture, and they're operating like a well oiled machine. That one person could outperform five people that you hire that are all over the place. Absolutely. It is... There is a draw to do that because it feels... All... I always wanted to be an entrepreneur. I've I've always wanted to be an entrepreneur, and part of that, my vision in my head was I have a team. And so I hired a team many times without learning how to manage a team.

Brandon Parker51:28And so just another place where where it can get sloppy fast, and it's definitely... That definitely happens often.

Ron Apke51:37People listening will, like... Just like, yeah, Ron and Brandon don't know what they're talking about. I'm gonna go hire seven people at once. Now sometimes you just gotta learn... I mean, we did it. Like, we learned from our mistakes. So many people learn. And that... This is a tough one because there's a culture right now with, like, delegate everything. Like, you don't need to do everything... Anything. Delegate everything. Everything will take care of itself. But, yeah, it's definitely a lesson I learned, and I'm sure a lot of people out there who are... Will will learn it as well.

Brandon Parker52:08Something that that I learned that was... That's very tactical knowledge for people who are looking to hire is, for me, the art of delegating and how to delegate and manage an employee was just something I needed to start practicing. And it's... If if you hire one person and you start actually practicing using them really effectively, how do you give them a task? For example, you know, I would learn how to give someone a task with a few steps. It'd be like the commander's intent.

Brandon Parker52:39Here's what... Why I'm doing this, the purpose of what we want this to look like. Here is all the things that you're gonna need to get it done, like logins and links. Here's background information that you'll need for context. Here is the deliverable. When you're done, this is what you should... This is the outcome, and then here's the end state. Like, after you get the outcome, here's what you do. You send me a Slack message with a link to the report and, you know, and you email the the client or something.

Brandon Parker53:09You know? Like, being very strategic on how you tell something... Sell... Tell someone what to do. Like, delegating becomes an art form. It becomes second nature after time, but those small steps of learning what it is to actually have an employee that's effective are an important part of the process and a really fun part of the process. If someone knows like, hey. Here's the first step. If you haven't hired someone or if you've hired just a couple people and they have sucked, then hire one person and just study how to work and lead a person and delegate tasks effectively

Ron Apke53:42is a good first step. Have you heard of the one three one rule? I haven't. So I don't know who it's from, honestly. Apologies. But, yeah, it's basically... And what you... What you'll learn is, like, employees love bringing problems to you, and then, like, they expect you to solve their issues. So what it is essentially, and we implement it. I'm very strict on this for the most part, is they bring you one problem, they need to bring you three possible solutions with it, one three, and then you need to bring one suggested, like, is the one I'm suggesting. So always bring in multiple possible solutions because as you hire people and they bring you a problem, then you solve it with...

Ron Apke54:15They're not learning anything. Like, it teaches them how to solve problems, like, think like you're thinking. Then you talk through it. Like, okay. Here's the one problem they brought. Here's the three potential solutions. Maybe, like, one of those solutions doesn't work even though they said, like, this is the one we should do. Like... And then we talk through it, and they learn how to think. Because that's part of being a business owner, an entrepreneur, or having employees is you gotta help teach them how to think through problems. Problem solving is what entrepreneurship is at the end of the day.

Brandon Parker54:43100%. And especially hiring overseas, a lot of times, there's a very strong culture of hierarchy. And so intentionally breaking that, like, you don't need to come ask me permission. You need to come give me a thought. You know? And that's like, structurally, there... There's a shift there for, you know, executive assistance. And and riffing off that idea, I just learned this from John Matzner, my unofficial mentor. He takes that into empowering also. So let's say they come with some solutions, and a solution's like 9090% correct, but I have the 100%.

Brandon Parker55:21I'm like, I could make this a little bit better. That's a chance to not make it better and just empower the employee. If it's low, if it's low risk, it's like whatever. That's good enough. I'm gonna just tell them, hey. Let's run with that idea. That's a great idea. Implement. You know? As opposed to coming in, that's a pretty good idea. Here's what we're gonna do. And so finding those little times where you can empower that person and reinforce the idea that we're gonna use your ideas, you can kinda jump on those opportunities and give them a little bit of confidence to to build that.

Ron Apke55:54I like that. You know, as a business owner too, or you're... When it's your company, like, I... Oh, you need it to be perfect. So, like, it's so easy to, like, adjust their idea just a little bit. I I could be way better about that, I'm sure. But that's a that's a really good piece of advice.

Brandon Parker56:08That's why it resonated with me too. Like, if you have full context, you're like, that could be better, but stopping myself from current or correcting it just to, like, actually, you know what? It's good. And what ends up happening is the middle management or not... You know, the the assistants, the people running the business, that becomes the engine of of the land business. You know? Your person making decisions that you would make over time, that's where that's where the actual leverage from hiring comes in.

Brandon Parker56:39It doesn't come from hiring and having them, like, knock out tasks. It's when they start doing stuff that you would do, and you don't have to do it anymore, and you're confident in that. That's where it's like, okay. That's the leverage of hiring. And so thinking about building those people to a place where you start getting real leverage is is the key, I think.

Ron Apke56:59Absolutely. Yeah. I I love that a lot. It's... Hiring can scale your business. It can make you a lot more money. It can make your life easier in a lot of ways, but it has to be done the right way.

Brandon Parker57:14What what final thoughts do you wanna throw out to the to the audience here as we start to round this episode up?

Ron Apke57:21And if you guys are looking to get into land, I think you you have to give it some time. Like, even if you already got started and you're like... You start second guessing. Like, it's so easy to jump to, like, the next shiny object you hear. Like, there is... And and I say this all the time. Like, land is... If everything... All my knowledge was wiped clean, anything like that, like... And I was evaluating business opportunities, whatever it is, like, I'd still choose land today. Like, it is still an unbelievable opportunity. But what you need to do today that you didn't have to do necessarily five, six years ago, like, you need to give it a little more time.

Ron Apke57:55Like, it's going to take time to get deals, build your systems, everything like that, your marketing strategies. But, yeah, don't don't just hop into this business just because you think it's... Like, that's not a easy business, I don't wanna say, but there's a ton of opportunity if you commit to it.

Brandon Parker58:10Yes. Where can people find you online?

Ron Apke58:13Apkey Brothers on YouTube is a good spot. Yeah. That's Ron Apkey on Instagram, anything like that. But, yeah, those are probably two best spots.

Brandon Parker58:22Alright. And if... Final question. If you could send one message on Twitter, so short, pithy, one message on Twitter that everyone in the world would see, What would you say to the world?

Ron Apke58:38Oh, that's a that's a wild one. I think I think give back. Like, just, like, as short as that. Like, I think, like, giving back, being productive to the world. Like, I think so many people do things for themselves and just, like, only for themselves. Giving back is, like, in my opinion, like, doing the most for yourself that you... In a selfish way. Like, it just does so much. But, yeah, not...

Ron Apke59:08I didn't know that would be what would come out of my mouth, but give back. Be generous.

Brandon Parker59:14You're a legend, Ron Apkey. Thanks for coming on the show today. Good to see you. Thank you.