No! Don't go in there! Daddy's working.
Jonathan: Yes, yes, y'all. It is another edition of the Daddy's Working Podcast. If you were listening last week, then you heard Part 1 of the interview and I left you hanging. Gosh, I'm such a tease, but we're here, and we're ready to rock and roll. So, let's dive back into part two of the interview.
…
Let me tell you something, Josh. There is nobody that's going to be lying on their deathbed, wishing they went to more real estate conferences and did more talks.
Josh: Amen to that.
Jonathan: Respect, brother, respect. I've thought the same thing and I didn't know if it was a limiting belief, but I feel validated today, talking to you, because I've thought about that, too. People tell me, You should go. You should do talks. You should get more stages. You should do that. And I'm like, Well, I've got a microphone and an internet connection. If I can't do it here, I don't want to do it. [01:10.1]
And I think that has cost me quite a bit of business, but there's nothing that compares to this morning, bro. His first day of school. What did I do? I got up. We did morning routine. We did our prayer. We did our reading. We made his bed. We did the calendar. Then, I went and got my exercise and then I walked him to school. There's never going to be a time where I don't want to do those things. And so. I respect you, bro, because not everybody has the right mindset for that.
Josh: Listen, that may not be the right choice for some of your listeners, right? I'm not here to judge that either. It's just a decision that I made that it was just going to be nonnegotiable. And is that costing me monetarily? Yeah, maybe, but there are things that I'm getting from that decision that are way more important.
Jonathan: Priceless.
Josh: Yeah, so a hundred percent.
Jonathan: I’m going to correct Josh. I don't care what he says. If that's not the right decision for you, you stop listening to Daddy's Working right now. We are family-first here. Don’t go all soft on me here, all right? [02:11.7]
So, let me ask you about this. There are a couple things I want to ask you about. Number one, did you say that you're back into investing now?
Josh: Yes.
Jonathan: Tell me about that. Tell me what's going on there.
Josh: And I hadn't done anything for years. I could figure out how many, but the thing that sparked my interest is, and I’ve kind of jumped back in with both feet, I heard some people that I trust and hold in high esteem, talking about investing in land. I said earlier that, for me, there’s no perfect business model or business opportunity, but when it comes to investing for me, based upon my past experience, when I wrapped my head around this, I was like, This is it. This is as close to perfect for me, from my experience, as I'm going to find when it comes to investing, and it really has been that. [03:06.4]
At the time of this recording, it has been about a year since I’ve jumped back in.
Jonathan: Wow.
Josh: And not only am I doing it. I created a little of course around it because it's kind of what I do. Also, the thing about that is, in creating that, when you teach, it clarifies the way you think about stuff and the way you look at stuff. It helps you get better at the thing that you're doing, and so, that was another reason why I created it, but it's exciting. It's fun.
It's something that, for me, it's investing, but it's also building a business and it's kind of like a generational type of business.
Our core business, I’m not going to be passing that on to my children. That's just not going to happen. This business model and the assets? That may happen. That was another reason why it made sense and why I wanted to or what sparked me to dive back in and start doing some of that stuff.
Jonathan: The bomb’s going to go off.
Josh: What’s that?
Jonathan: I think there’s some beeping. The bomb’s going to go off. Cut the red wire. Cut the red wire. [04:05.0]
Josh: Right, exactly.
Josh: All right, there's a couple of different things. Number one, I like what you said about building the course, because a lot of times people are like, Why would you build a course on that? And I was listening to Brian Tracy the other day and what he said was, you teach what you most need to learn, so by teaching, you are actually improving your grasp on that concept. So, respect there.
With the land deals, is it just lots? Are you developing land? Are you just getting acres and acres, and cutting down trees and selling them? What are you doing?
Josh: There are lots of different niches in land. What I've done are primarily buildable lots and recreational lots. I'm not subdivided. I'm not doing any improvements, etc.
Now, I say “not any.” There have been a couple where I had a perc test done, which is a test you do to say, yes, you can put a sewer system here. So, I've done minor type of things that are improvements, but nothing major. We're not clearing anything out. We're not subdividing, anything like that. Just finding good deals and then selling them, either for cash for a quick profit or selling them with owner financing for cash flow. [05:12.0]
And when you find a good deal, it makes it easy to turn that into profitable. In fact, yesterday I got two contracts on parcels that we own, and so it was a good day. It was a good day yesterday.
Jonathan: Yes, sir. I loved to hear that. So, how are you finding the deals? Are you using your marketing skills in the real world to get deals?
Josh: I am, with direct mail, primarily, but we've gotten a few deals through online means as well, but specifically for land, direct mail is the most predictable, let's say, because they're not getting a ton of marketing messages.
Jonathan: Who wrote the copy? You? You wrote the copy, didn’t you?
Josh: Well … no. One thing that I would also point to. I kind of mentioned it already. I'm not afraid to go out and find the person that's already figured it out and then put my own personal touch on it. [06:03.3]
One or two of the messages, I probably wrote, I don't know 70 or 80 percent of it, but a lot of it is just taking what's already working for other people, tweaking it to my personality and my tonality, and that kind of stuff, and getting it out there. Then, on the buyer's side, that's where we're really using the things that I've been teaching for years to build a buyer's list and get the properties sold, and ideally sold pretty quickly.
Jonathan: Look at you, man. I'm right on the edge, but we want more apartments. That's where we're at and I'm like, We’ve got to do something and I keep taking it, putting a toe in and then backing up. But we’ve got a system that works. We’ve got more demand than we have property and we just need to add property. Cupcake and I were actually discussing that this morning, so it’s interesting that you're in there doing something. Thanks for the encouragement there.
Josh: Yeah, right on.
Jonathan: You said that right now there was some changes in Facebook and this is where we got off into the turning obstacles into opportunities. What are the opportunities that you're seeing now in that digital landscape? [07:09.0]
Josh: It's funny, one of them is going back to some old tried and true like Google pay-per-click and some other platforms. Facebook is still where there are so many eyeballs, so many people spending a great deal of time on. But going back and looking at some things like Google pay-per-click, even Twitter—Twitter has a pay-per-click platform—and then, because I've had some good experience with it in land, direct mail. Right?
Jonathan: Yeah, right, old-school direct mail. No, no, that doesn't work.
Josh: When it comes down to message, like you've got to have a message or a unique selling proposition. That's really the differentiating factor. If you're sending out, in real estate, specifically, if you're sending out as I get every year—we get several people around Christmas time that send me their little calendar.
Jonathan: Yeah, who cares?
Josh: Yeah. You're not going to get my business from that. But if you've got a truly unique selling proposition or something that is outside of the norm, then any of that can still work. [08:09.0]
And, I would say, on the direct mail side, most of us are getting a lot less mail then two, three, four, five years ago. So, if you've got something unique and interesting that can cut through the clutter, there's less clutter for you to cut through in a person's mailbox.
Jonathan: It's so funny, man. We live in a condo. We moved to a condo downtown last year. We rented because we weren't sure. We were a little bit afraid. We left to suburbs and moved into the city, and we didn't know if we were going to like it. So, we like it. We love it. And then, we were like, We want to buy a place, but everything on the MLS sucks. So, what did we do? We started direct mail campaigns [sound dropped 08:43.0] -
Josh: Nice.
Jonathan: - we wanted, and it was: “Warning: Don't sell your condo before you read this message. If you hate paying sky-high realtor commissions and having people trotting in and out of your house at all hours of the day, and long negotiations, then this message has found you just in time. Hi, I'm J.R.”
Josh: That’s awesome, man. [09:01.5]
Jonathan: But you know what? We realized—and this is funny and this is a lesson on messaging—what we found was that because we did that in that building, the owners got pumped up, and so they started giving us higher prices than the MLS because they're thinking, Oh, I got this and they want it.
So, it backfired on us, bro. But the thing was, we put it out there that we wanted to buy a unit. We talked to some agents and we got a pocket listing just last week that we're going to be closing on in a couple of weeks.
Josh: Nice. Congrats.
Jonathan: It's just funny how the messaging that might work elsewhere, like here, it didn't work, and so you always have to have a market message match to deals, so that [inaudible 09:41.4].
Josh: Totally, because every market is unique and different. The way people respond in Central Pennsylvania is wildly different than in Florida, California, Texas or wherever. You’ve got to know your market, and then, as you said, message. The message has to match that and their expectations. Yeah, that's interesting. [10:02.7]
Jonathan: Yeah, it was a good lesson. Everybody's pricing things crazy and we're like, Excuse me, I don't think you're realistic. They're adding realtor commission plus and I'm like, Whoa, whoa, whoa.
Josh: I know what you mean, right.
Jonathan: They're charging crazy.
Josh: They thought they’ve won the lottery, right? This is a lottery ticket.
Jonathan: Oops. I changed the message the next time. But now what we're going to do is we're just going to market to our neighbors and just be like, You guys looking to sell? You guys looking to sell? So, we can buy two units across the side and have a penthouse on the eighth floor.
Josh: Yeah, buddy.
Jonathan: Man, so what else are you guys doing? Nobody really talks about direct mail. Are you guys doing any other print ads or anything like that, or is that mainly really postcards and mailers, and things like that?
Josh: Yeah, that's primarily it. Newspaper I think is still pretty outdated. There are some markets where we've heard people still doing okay with direct response type of messaging and those kinds of things, and even in some of the little penny saver kind of things. There are certain markets where that's still gets a little bit of traction. [11:07.7]
But the direct mail, yeah, that’s more of the offline thing where you have a little bit more control over [it]. Once you get your numbers dialed in, it’s very scalable and that's always the thing that we're looking at—systems that are predictable and scalable, and that you have at least some level of control over.
You don't always have a hundred percent control over everything, nut you have some level of control over that, and you can kind of maximize your upside potential and minimize the downside risk.
Jonathan: Yeah. How many pieces are you guys sending out a month?
Josh: For land?
Jonathan: Yeah.
Josh: Summertime, things slow down with four kids and wanting to be around.
Josh: I get it.
Jonathan: I'm not very good at it during summer time, and so, now it's starting to ramp back up. At the beginning of the year, at the beginning of 2019, I would say, anywhere from 1,500 to 2,500 pieces per month. [12:02.8]
Jonathan: What kind of response rate are you getting there?
Josh: It depends. There are two different types of mail pieces that I'll send on land. One is just a postcard, just trying to get people to respond. The alternate is an actual offer.
Jonathan: Really?
Josh: An actual purchase agreement or an on-page agreement, usually with a cover letter, and we've moved almost exclusively to that because you get far fewer responses, but they're serious. You don't have to have this whole bunch of back and forth, and so forth. When we're sending direct offers, if I send out 1,000, typically, we'll get five to 10, maybe 15 of them back, and then two or three of them, maybe four of them turn into an actual deal.
On the postcards, you can get tons of responses on those. I've gotten for 1,000, you can get 40 or 50 people calling, but a lot of the time, it's like what you experienced. They think they won the lottery. I can sell this. I can sell this bozo my $20,000 a piece of land for $50,000. He has no idea. [13:03.3]
And there are still motivated people in there, but you're catching everybody with that, whereas with the offers, it's definitely lower response, but I'll take that. I'd rather be working with smaller numbers of people that are serious and interested versus trying to sift and sort through tons of people who may be unrealistic or whatever the case may be.
Jonathan: Wow, and they say that the person that makes the first offer generally loses, so you must be making an offer that's quite acceptable. It'd be a big win in that purchase contract.
Josh: Right. Just some basic things. This is one of the appealing things about land. We’ll send out offers for 20 to 30 percent of retail value, which on houses, on condos …
Jonathan: Never going to happen.
Josh: [sound dropped 13:46.9] consider that. But on land where there's no personal attachment to it, in most cases—in some cases, it has been in the family. I've had some people call me and yell at me, but in most cases there's not that personal attachment—and there’s nothing. It’s just different. [14:01.2]
You can get people to readily accept those kinds of things, whereas in other niches in investing, you're never going to buy an apartment building for 20 cents on the dollar. It's just not going to happen. Maybe not never, but you can't build a business around that whereas, in this, it happens quite frequently, and that allows you to then price very aggressively on the sales side because you don't have to sell it anywhere near retail to make out quite well.
Jonathan: Yeah, that’s great, Josh.
Look, we're coming up towards the tail end here and what I usually like to do is ask you a really wide-open question and say, is there anything that you thought we would talk about or that you wanted to talk about that maybe we didn't hit yet?
Josh: Fitness. I know that's part of or one of the pillars, and so, that's something that I'm passionate about. Maybe not. But I actually went to college to be a health and Phys Ed teacher.
Jonathan: Really?
Josh: And for most of—not most—until probably age 30, I was what I would describe as a skinny fat guy. I looked all right in clothes, but not so great when in the swimsuit. [15:11.5]
This is kind of a shout out to Tim Ferriss and just my general philosophy, finding the minimum effective dose. That was one of the things from Tim Ferriss that I loved the best—what’s the most efficient way for me to get the end result? And I think when it comes to fitness and health, in general, like there's so much noise and crap, and so forth, and I am in far better shape than I was when I was in high school and I work out less than that.
Not that I don't work out, but if you're strategic about your diet, if you're strategic about your fitness, it doesn't have to be excruciating. It doesn't have to be … I don't want to say it doesn't have to be difficult because anything worth doing requires some effort, but it doesn't have to be this complicated, grueling kind of thing to be in great shape and to look good with your shirt off. [16:03.4]
Jonathan: With your thong on?
Josh: Right, yeah, I’m not going that far, but …
Jonathan: What are you doing then? Because I thought you look like you're in good shape. I don't know what you looked like the last time we talked. So, what is your minimum effective dose that you're doing now?
Josh: It's funny because it has evolved, right? I'm trying to look. I think I have the book right here, yeah. It started with The 4-Hour Body.
Jonathan: Of course, Tim Ferriss.
Josh: And what he calls the slow-carb diet, and that's what kind of got me down the path. I'm trying to think of what year it was, but I was as heavy as I had been. That was the most I had ever weighed and I was just looking for something and I remember reading one plan that was the most complicated, convoluted way possible, and I was like, There is no way that I can do even half of this nonsense.
Then, literally, two weeks later, that book comes out and I'm like, This is the antithesis. This thing had 35 rules and you had to do this, that and the other thing, and this guy is saying just three or four things. That's it. And so, very quickly lost, I don't know, 30 pounds. I lost 30 pounds in [sound dropped 17:10.5] five days and it was almost all fat. [17:12.6]
I had lost weight before, but I just looked like a slightly smaller version of the awkward-looking, and this time it was like, man, I didn't just lose weight, but a lot of other things changed. That's evolved to now where I follow more of an intermittent fasting type of thing, which works for me, but there are lots of right answers. There's more than one right answer.
It's like, What's the right answer for you, that makes sense and works for you? For me, it started with the slow-carb diet and it has evolved into this, but this goes for business as well and finance. There’s more than one right answer. There are multiple ways to build a business and so forth. It's finding the right answer for you and, for me, that’s where it started and it has evolved over time.
So, yeah, that’s something that I’ve wanted to be able to share and inspire people with more, but just haven’t figured out the right way to do that, because I think that affects so many different things, your self-esteem and just your energy level. [18:13.4]
Jonathan: I'm with you, bro. You were talking to me earlier about having a little dip and I was actually experiencing … I went off a cliff a couple of months ago. Like we always do as entrepreneurs, we have that success and we come down and then we go back. It's never a straight line. It's never a rocket ship to the sky.
I said, “I'm going to do something radically different this quarter. I'm going to make this quarter just about fitness. I don't have any business goals, I don't have any family goals. I don't have any goal. I have one goal and it's fitness.”
I've never done this other than maybe when I was a kid in my twenties, and, all of a sudden, I'm doing something called 75HARD. There are two workouts a day, 45 minutes each, one indoor and one outdoor. It doesn't matter, the intensity, so sometimes I just walk twice a day. A gallon of water. No alcohol. Read 10 pages of a business book, and take a picture. [19:05.8]
Dude, I'm down 11 pounds and I'm down 8 percent body fat, and business is better than it's ever been, and my mind right now is so freakin’ clear. So, when you said you were feeling a little bit … I was like, This guy needs a fitness challenge. That's all that came to my mind, something that can take you away from, Oh, this is not working or I don't like that, and put you into another zone. It has been the most amazing thing. I look better than I did when I got married. I'm 30 pounds lighter than when I got married.
Josh: That’s awesome, man. I wrote down 75HARD and I'm going to check that out.
One thing because you brought it up, I forget and can’t remember what I was reading or listening to, but I needed to find some kind of challenge, a Spartan Race or something like that for this reason, and I want to show my kids that it's okay to do something hard just to do something hard. There doesn't even have to be a reason, other than to prove to yourself, Yeah, that was hard and, yeah, I just did it. [20:02.8]
Jonathan: Leading by example, bro, because that's the same thing. I guess this is a little egocentric. My kid is five years old, right? I love to go to school and there are all these young parents and stuff, and I'm 20 years older than some of them, and I look way better and it makes me feel freakin’ getting good.
Josh: No, I'm with you, man. I’m with you.
Jonathan: Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. But, yeah, man, cool. Look, we've hit all the angles, family, faith, fitness and finances. But the one thing that we haven't said and I want you to say loud and proud. When people want to find out more about you, where do they go?
Josh: They can find me on Facebook. I have my personal page and I have my brand page, and, certainly, you can connect with me there. That's where I'm probably most active for those interested in business. ClientAlchemist.com is our website.
Jonathan: And if there’s a podcast somewhere out there, too. [21:00.4]
Josh: There is as well, and that probably needs to be revived. But, yeah, if you Google me, I'm not hard to find. My name is unique enough that you're not going to find too many others, and I'm happy to connect with any of your …
Jonathan: Gang. Daddies. Daddies out there, it’s Schoenly, Josh Schoenly, but it’s spelled S-C-H-O-E-N-L-Y. Look for this guy. I'll link to you on the show notes page.
Brother, this was more fun than I could have ever anticipated. Thank you so much.
Josh: Thanks for having me. It was a blast.
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