Virtual Assistants Assistance—Should You Buy Or Rent Your Team?

When it comes to hiring VAs, should you rent or buy?

Do you pay a premium and rent VAs that have already been trained in the business saving you considerable time and headache. Or do you prefer to buy your own and train them on YOUR business based on your own preferences?

In this week’s Round Table discussion, Mark and Team Geek…

• Scott Bossman
• Erik Peterson
• Aaron Williams
• Mike Zaino
• Tate Litchfield
• Scott Todd

…discuss the differences of both options and the best way to build a team.

There are many advantages to each, the most significant being:

• Building a team—they are there for you on your schedule using your processes
• Using a service—saves you time, especially crucial in the beginning when setting up your systems

Ultimately, it all comes down to YOU and your preferences.

Find out what the team has to say and how this subject oddly leads to a heated discussion of plumbing!

I’m a person who likes to control my processes. I need someone to fit my systems, not me fit theirs. On the other hand, there’s the convenience aspect especially when you’re first getting started, when you need to put in a lot of work without actually putting in a lot of work. The services come in handy because they are trained and ready to go. -Aaron

Plus, Scott Todd gives us a Flight School LIVE rundown! (May 17,18, 19)

Mark: Check out the book, Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear.

Isn’t it time to create passive income so you can work where you want, when you want and with whomever you want?

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Our guest, Austin Krajicek, is not only a current coaching client, he is also a professional tennis player who travels the world and ranks #39 in doubles… and he joins us today to talk about his land investing journey!

Austin ran across The Land Geek model while trying to utilize his spare time while in China on a tour. And, after already trying his hand in the rental property niche and finding it too difficult to manage from abroad, he thought land investing would better serve him.

Austin, who started out with the Investor’s Toolkit, soon went into Flight School last August. After doing a few deals by the end of the year and seeing what was possible, he then signed up for coaching.

Listen in as Austin talks about his experience in Flight School and find out the details of:

• Timeline of his first sale
• Favorite deal
• How coaching differs from Flight School

The guys also delve into the mindset of an athlete and the mental process of letting go and how it parallels to the land business.

Plus, get ready as Austin serves up great advice for land newbies for game-set-match!

Mark: Follow Austin’s career, support him all around the world, and in his land business on landmodo.com/austin.

Scott:  If you hate phone cases but want the protection, check out Zagg 360—it’s a invisible shield for the front, back, and sides of your phone.

Austin: Check out Blinkist for a great way to simplify books. It gives 15 minute summaries of key points in books and is a great way to narrow down and see what books really relate to you. 

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Can a county become too saturated? It’s a topic that comes up often. More specifically, there is an area in CO with a lot of investor activity, does that mean you should look elsewhere or throw in your fishing pole?

It just depends on what kind of fisherman you are.

Join Mark and Team Geek:

• Erik Peterson
• Aaron Williams
• Mimi Schmidt
• Scott Bossman
• Scott Todd

…as they offer sagacious advice when working in saturated areas.

Even when an area is rich in investors it doesn’t mean that you won’t find the deals there. It just means that the market is good and there is a high demand in that area. It may take a little more work, but the deals are there.

What can you do if you are working in a saturated area?

• Find a way to stand out
• Specialize in a certain niche
• Diversify
• Put together a good buyers list
• Keep showing up
• Know your numbers

As Scott Todd points out, LGPass has put out over 700,000 offer letters in the past 2.5 years. And when Scott ran the numbers on one particular area, one APN number had only been mailed to 3-4 times, in that time frame. 

The market is the market. If the market is saying to you that there is high demand for that area, then investors will go there. What you will find is when you put on your fisherman’s hat, some people will go out and fish and if they don’t get a bite or 2 within the first hour, they go back home.

Other people will hang out there 8 hours and they’ll catch some fish and they’ll be super happy because this place is great.

Then some people, like myself, will hang out there 18 years and they will keep catching fish because they keep showing up because they know that there is fish there. And I don’t care if on one day or one week I don’t catch any fish. I know there are fish there, I know they are delicious and I know they’re going to make me fat & happy.

Mark Podolsky

Listen in now for all the details!

Mimi: Check out this website called YouTubeEmbedCode.com. It’s a code generator to embed videos on your website or give to your clients. It’s easy and FREE.

Isn’t it time to create passive income so you can work where you want, when you want and with whomever you want?

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Taking the stress out of buy & hold real estate with The Blissful Investor, Moneeka Sawyer, on today’s episode of The Art of Passive Income.

Our motto here at The Land Geek is No Renters, No Rehabs, No Rodents. By investing in raw land you avoid all the stress that comes with rentals. But today, Mooneka Sawyer gives us a different perspective with her unique approach to  buy & hold properties. An approach that produces very little stress and requires very little time investment. She has found a way to get around the 3-R’s and invests only 5-10 hours a month.

How does she do it?

She’s here to tell us her secret, but first, here’s a little about Moneeka…

Moneeka is a real estate investor with a multi-million dollar portfolio. She is often described by people who know her as one of the most joyful people you’ll ever meet and you’ll definitely agree after this podcast. She personifies her bliss through helping people live the life of their dreams, filled with meaning, purpose and joy.

She is also the host of the very joyful podcast titled Real Estate Investing For Women. And, author of Choose Bliss: The Power and Practice of Joy and Contentment.

If we lose sight of our core values, if we lose touch with what really makes us happy no matter how much money you’ve got it’s not going to replace that.

Moneeka

Listen in as Moneeka shares her real estate beginnings. Hear how she got started with a $10,000 wedding gift and turned it into millions with her unique approach.

We also delve deep into:

• Moneeka’s strategy
• The market she targets
• Her definition of success

Plus, find out the worst advice she’s seen given in real estate and so much more!

Moneeka delivers a ton of value in this episode, and all with a smile!

Mark: Learn more about Moneeka and her incredibly interesting real estate strategy at BlissfulInvestor.com. And also check out her podcast, Real Estate Investing for Women.

Scott: Check out the app called Duet Display. For $10 it turns your iPad into a second computer monitor.

Moneeka: Find out how I coached my executives to go from having everything to actually being joyful. And that’s in the book, Choose Bliss: The Practice of Joy and Contentment.

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Do your land ads keep getting flagged on Craigslist? It’s all about location!

Join Mark and Team Geek:

• Erik Peterson
• Aaron Williams
• Mimi Schmidt
• Scott Todd

…as they dive deep into the struggle of getting your ads to stick, on this week’s Round Table.

Erik shares how he often sees people throw the towel in too soon when it comes to CL because of flagged posts. Since Craigslist is big on getting rid of scammers and spammers, they only want local people selling local goods, making it hard to market our property.

Listen in as the team shares what works for them and offers sage advice for setting up a good algorithm to produce high stick rates.

But, what happens when you make it through the filters and you aren’t getting the leads?

Scott Todd has the answer for you!

You don’t need hundreds of ads a day, you just need to find your voice so people will connect with you.

Scott Todd

Have you given Craigslist a fair chance and still don’t feel the love? Do whatever is working for you, just don’t write CL off too soon because of the struggles in the beginning. Erik says that the majority of his leads come from there… and a lead is as good as a sale!

The team goes on to compare CL to Facebook.

Scott: Change your passwords! If you’re using the same username and password for everything, you better stop it. Make sure you use super strong passwords and figure out some system to manage that because the threat is real. Protect yourself. 

Isn’t it time to create passive income so you can work where you want, when you want and with whomever you want?

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We talk with Minesh Bhindi, CEO of Gold And Silver For Life.

Minesh is a wealth manager who has been helping people generate a monthly cash flow income through gold and silver since 2010 and has clients all over the world.

Minesh starts us off with a rundown of his background—starting at age 16 he was working with his father in real estate. From there he got into trading and also taught it to others until the market crash of 2008.

The truth is you can use the same tools that you use to generate cash flow in the stock market and real estate in gold and silver and most people don’t know about that because of the misinformation that’s been out there.

Minesh

Listen in as Minesh shares how the crash led him to gold and silver. He also talks about the misinformation and negativity surrounding exchange traded funds (ETFs).

We also delve into:

• The wealth transfer
• Why gold and silver need to be a part of a balanced portfolio
• The three parts of a balanced portfolio
• The 38-year money cycle
• Physical assets versus investing through the exchange
• The numbers

And, so much more!

If you’ve ever thought about investing in gold and silver, you can’t afford to miss this episode!

TIP OF THE WEEK

Mark:  Learn more about Minesh and his webinar at GoldAndSilverForLife.com.

Scott: Check out Treck.co. It cost $5 a month and it helps you collect email addresses within your content by creating call-to-action buttons.

Minesh: Come up with your net worth and then figure out how much money you’ve got is each bucket—real estate, gold and silver, in cash, in the stock market. 

That will give you a great idea of how to balance. Based on my research, 40% in the US stock market , 40% in prime real estate, and 20% in gold and silver has generated great returns since 1972. You need a little bit of everything, but too much can become inefficient.

Isn’t it time to create passive income so you can work where you want, when you want and with whomever you want?

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Finding Focus—So often in this business we see people who get hung up and hyper-focus on the little details that aren’t doing anything to help their businesses grow. How do you reset that mentality so you can focus on the things that bring value?

Joining Mark in this week’s Round Table, are:

• Scott Bossman
• Tate Litchfield
• Erik Peterson
• Mimi Schmidt
• Aaron Williams
• Scott Todd

Join Team Geek as they help you whack through the weeds of the business giving you clear vision to focus on the parts of the business that really matter… the ones that move the needle.

A few things the team covers are:

• Theming
• Letting go of the small things
• Mind mapping and working backwards
• Prioritizing
• Shirt sizing

…and more!

Make sure every day you do what matters most. When you know what matters most, everything makes sense. When you don’t know what matters most, anything makes sense.

Gary Keller

When Procrastination Gets In The Way

What happens when other things hold you back… like fear? We tend to procrastinate when something needs to be done that we are uncomfortable doing, so we find excuses not to do those uncomfortable tasks. How do you move past that fear and the procrastinatory excuses and find focus for consistency?

But first… man oh man, those slinging headlines!

Mimi: Check out Erik’s Airtable Templates for ad management. 

Isn’t it time to create passive income so you can work where you want, when you want and with whomever you want?

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What happens when you climb to the top of the finance food chain only to discover it’s not what you were hungry for?

That was the story for today’s guest, Alex Grodnik—Wall Street Oasis.

It’s funny, you work your whole life to get something and then it’s like, Man, maybe this isn’t right for me.

Alex

Alex began his career as an analyst at JP Morgan Private Bank and after completing the program he moved into investment banking at Houlihan Lokey in their restructuring group. He then went on to work at a pioneering digital media firm before getting his MBA at UCLA Anderson.

Listen in as Alex joins Mark to talk about his journey from successful investment banker to following what he knew in his heart was his true path, entrepreneurship.

The guys discuss:

• The impactful moment of Alex’s business school experience that was life-changing
• Advice Alex would give to his younger self
• How Alex defines success
• Doing what we want versus what society wants from you

Alex also gives great advice for those who want out of that cubicle they’re stuck in so they can go on to fulfill their passion.

In today’s world where opportunity is endless and no permission is needed to follow your passion, what is stopping you from doing whatever you want?

TIP OF THE WEEK

Mark: Learn more about Alex by visiting his website and his podcast: WallStreetOasis.com & WallStreetOasis.com/podcasts.

Alex: Rejection Therapy—It’s not taking ‘no’ for an answer. The process is actively seeking out rejection everyday so that over time, you become desensitized to the fear of rejection. 

Isn’t it time to create passive income so you can work where you want, when you want and with whomever you want?

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How do you know if a VA is going to be an A-player? In this week’s Round Table, Team Geek shares how they find and hire top-notch VAs and train them for the land business.

With Mark back at the helm, will he clear up the confusion over the cheesecake discussion from last week’s Round Table?

Joining Mark are:

• Aaron Williams
• Mimi Schmidt
• Mike Zaino
• Tate Litchfield
• Scott Todd

Listen in as we delve deep into finding and hiring A-player VAs. We go over the processes that Team Geek uses, including:

• Stress-testing VAs
• What to look for
• Should you go by references
• Training them for the land business

A good VA thinks for themselves—When you train people you can give them too much detail. So season them by letting them think for themselves— give them the parameters and let them make the mistakes, then you go over those mistakes with them.

Mike Zaino

Plus, you might have thought with Mark back in town he would clear up the confusion over where we went? Not exactly, listen in as the cheesey hijinks continue!

Mimi: HireMyMom.com for U.S. based VAs.

Isn’t it time to create passive income so you can work where you want, when you want and with whomever you want?

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