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The Ground Game Podcast
Welcome to The Ground Game Podcast, where land investing meets real talk! Join your hosts, Justin and Clay, both 7-figure land investors and seasoned entrepreneurs, as they dive deep into the world of land investing, team building, and personal growth.
The Ground Game Podcast
Episode 50: Gurus, Gimmicks, and the Truth About Building a Real Land Flipping Business
🎙️ Welcome Back to The Ground Game Podcast! 🎙️
In this episode, hosts Clay Hepler and Justin Piche engage in a candid conversation about the realities of land investing and the importance of avoiding the pitfalls of flashy gurus. They share personal updates, insights on the challenges of the industry, and the significance of strategic decision-making in the ever-evolving real estate landscape.
Key Highlights
Personal Updates:
Clay and Justin kick off the episode with light-hearted banter about their recent reading adventures. Justin shares his excitement about diving into Brandon Sanderson's fantasy novels, including the Mistborn series and Stormlight Archive, while Clay discusses his exploration of thought-provoking nonfiction, such as The Comfort Crisis by Michael Easter and Belief by Ross Douthat. Their passion for reading reflects their commitment to continuous learning and personal growth.
Avoiding Guru Pitfalls:
The hosts delve into the complexities of navigating the real estate education landscape. They discuss the dangers of relying on flashy gurus who prioritize marketing over substance, emphasizing the need for genuine mentorship from experienced operators rather than marketers. Clay shares stories of individuals who have spent thousands on ineffective courses, highlighting the importance of discernment in choosing educational resources.
Scaling Challenges:
Clay and Justin discuss the treadmill effect of relying solely on land flipping and the need to diversify income streams to ensure long-term sustainability. They reflect on their experiences with managing multiple projects and the importance of strategic planning to maintain business growth amidst market fluctuations.
Market Insights:
The hosts share their observations on current market conditions, emphasizing the necessity of adapting to changing environments. They highlight the importance of understanding the cash conversion cycle and the challenges new investors face when entering the market.
The Importance of Feedback Loops:
The episode emphasizes the critical role of feedback loops in entrepreneurship. Clay and Justin stress the necessity of constant self-evaluation and data analysis to align their actions with business goals, sharing their experiences with tracking key performance indicators (KPIs).
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Justin Piche (00:00)
Welcome to the Ground Game Podcast. This is your co-host, Justin Piche.
Clay Hepler (00:04)
And this is your other co-host, Hepler. And we are here to show you how to win the ground
Dude, it's been a while since I hit it. Hit that second part, man. I'm feeling good about that. How was the delivery? Usually you crush the delivery, I just, you know, I'm just trying to learn, trying to learn. What's going on, man? What's new and exciting for you?
Justin Piche (00:28)
It was on point. It was beautiful
man.
⁓
What is new and exciting for me? Okay, so like this is a little nerding out. I read ridiculous amount, honestly. It's like that's my hobby outside of business and children and whatnot is books reading. And I am hooked, hooked on the Brandon Sanderson, just Cosmere books. They're fantasy novels.
Clay Hepler (00:45)
Any interesting books?
Justin Piche (01:13)
I used to be a huge prolific business book reader and those are all fun and stuff, but I find that at the end of the day, after thinking about a million things all day long and being spent, ⁓ I just love to dive into a fantasy novel and figure out what's going on. So I have recently read the Mistborn series, the first three books, which are exceptional. ⁓
Clay Hepler (01:31)
Nice dude, nice.
Justin Piche (01:42)
I've read the first few books of the Stormlight Archive, is just one of the most epic fantasy series out there.
Clay Hepler (01:51)
What's what's
the what can you give me like a little cliff note to three to three?
Justin Piche (01:56)
⁓ man,
let me just, so Brandon Sanderson, he is a fantasy writer who just builds this incredible world and everything, it's like magics and I mean, it's pretty nerdy or whatever, but it's like each world has its own kind of set of magic rules and his books usually follow like four, three, four, five kind of main characters through the book and they all kind of converge.
at some point later in the book. And there's all these kind of side stories that all kind of come in to reveal things in the book. So it's super engaging. You're not like reading one person's story the whole time. You jump to another person and see their struggles. And he makes the characters obviously like really real with flaws and trauma and issues that they overcome. But each world is different. So like for Mistborn, the premise is that medals are like this source of magic and people get it.
Clay Hepler (02:46)
Okay.
Justin Piche (02:52)
through these metals and some people get them in some don't. And then for the other one, it's this storm light with there's these crazy storms that come over the planet and like the electricity and the storm light is what is, you know, the source of the magic and when people have these different, it's kind of nerdy, but it's really, really interesting. if anybody's a, I used to be like, and I still am, a sci-fi, like a science fiction reader I've read.
Clay Hepler (03:14)
No dude, it's cool. It's cool.
Dude,
sci-fi is amazing, like very good sci-fis. Those authors are better at predicting the future than pretty much anyone else.
Justin Piche (03:28)
It's
so good. So I read the whole Foundation series recently. Yeah, all of them. All six books. All the Foundation series. I haven't read the iRobot series, but Isaac Asimov ties in the Foundation and iRobot series pretty well. So I need to kind go back and read those. But anyway, it's super. So I'm reading. That's what I'm reading right now.
Clay Hepler (03:33)
Have you read the Dune Series?
Wow, you've read all six books, dude. That's hardcore.
Justin Piche (03:54)
I'm reading a book called Elantris, which is actually Brandon Sanderson's first novel. I've read seven or eight of his other books before reading this one. It's good. It's maybe not as epic as some of these other ones, but it's really good. But I burned through them. Like a week I'm reading.
Clay Hepler (04:06)
So you like crush
your hobby. don't play, I mean some people watch football, college football, some people play video games. You're just crushing novels.
Justin Piche (04:16)
Nope.
Yeah, my problem is like I have a hard time going to sleep because I get so into these books. So like when I go to bed, 10, 10.30, whatever, I'm like last night I was up to like 1.30, but I was coming from Pacific time. So it was really like 11.30, you know, my internal clock, but yeah, so good. So good. What about you?
Clay Hepler (04:36)
I love it, man. I love it. That's cool.
What's my thing?
Justin Piche (04:41)
Yeah, what's your thing?
Clay Hepler (04:43)
Dude, I also really like to read. ⁓ was just, but I don't really read fantasy. Like for example, I've just read a book called The Comfort Crisis by Michael Easter. Basically, he's an investigative journalist that just talks about like all of modern comforts that we have. ⁓ We never evolved in the 72 degree Fahrenheit perfect temperature environment.
So he goes through, he talks about his whole story, like weaves into his, he goes up to Alaska for four weeks. He talks about all these different, interesting, almost performance enhancing things that you can do. He talks about like the Masogi. I don't know if you've heard of Masogi, which is doing a ridiculously hard thing that basically, you know, for 24 hours, you have a 50 % chance of achieving. It's like going cave diving for
12 hours straight or like like doing an ultra marathon without training like very crazy feats he talks about like You mental health in the book. He talks about going through discomfort cold And he weaves it into this story of him hunting caribou for five weeks in the Alaskan wilderness. It's a really cool book ⁓ he goes around the world talks about like things from
exercising to like morality and more in more our own mortality and talking about him going to Bhutan and learning why Bhutan is one of the happiest countries on the world. And, and it's a really great book. And I'm also reading a book called Oh, shoot. It's by Ross doorhat.
Justin Piche (06:33)
Pull up that Kindle app.
Clay Hepler (06:36)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's Ross do hat. ⁓ Belief. It's a why everyone should be religious. It's a New York Times bestseller. ⁓ It's an I heard this guy he was on a New York Times podcast, and I'm always interested in religiosity. And so I
My wife and I both ordered this book and we're reading it. It's really interesting. It's pretty dense. ⁓ But I think he's a he's like a religious scholar. ⁓ He is a columnist for the New York Times ⁓ and like writes about a bunch of different topics, but it's nonfiction. In other words, I do a lot of nonfiction stuff. I really enjoy that. But that was a book that recently came out and my wife and I bought it so we could read it together.
Clay Hepler (07:35)
Dude, you and I were just talking about like
Legitimate authors creating legitimate books based on experiences or their own imagination and today I want to talk about illegitimate people creating illegitimate courses and selling them Instead of being operators in this business. I think so many people do I talked to so many people people DM me hey, I've spent 35 40 thousand dollars in in marketing and I've got no lead flow and I talked to them on an audit caller a strategy call and
And they're using this person's CRM, they're using their mailing house, they're using their data, they're using everything that this guru is spoon feeding them. And they're new, and so they don't know any better, right? And I think more and more today you see people getting in, I see people on my timeline, a guy that used to be a huge wholesaler, educator, and now he is a
Justin Piche (08:10)
Yep. Yep.
Clay Hepler (08:36)
educator on co-living and Guys every day they're like younger than us you and me and they're like I did seven million dollars last year or No, I'm saying that maybe three two million dollars last year, and I'm driving a Lambo and you're like How are you driving Lambo if you're making that much money because we all know the margins in this business Unless you spend all your money on a Lambo So I think today we really want to talk about like for our listeners right people that are listening here are
people that are trying to scale their business, right? And they could fall into this guru trap. And so let's talk about like what's wrong with real estate educators now and how to avoid the hype, how to avoid a guru so our listeners can really benefit from, you know, how to see the forest from the trees. Cause a lot of times, man, they're sheep in, they're wolves in sheep clothing. They're really able to market themselves really well. They're better at internet marketing than anyone else. And they make themselves seem like they're more legitimate than they are.
Justin Piche (09:35)
Yeah, I mean, I agree with, I've seen this so many times. The most I've seen this was when I was coaching at LearnLand and I was consulting, coaching with LearnLand, helping teach this, teach their, their group of students, land investing and just being really more of like a mentor of, I've dealt with all these problems or the vast majority of problems that you're dealing with. How did I overcome them? People who come into the program and that they, that's exactly the...
Like your story, what you just said, that's exactly how they came in. They've spent 20,000, 30,000, whatever on marketing, on coaching, et cetera, from some land program. And the first thing I would do is say, okay, well talk to me about your marketing. Where are you getting your data? How are you marketing? How are you picking your markets? What does your marketing copy look like? How are you getting with leads? How are you comping all of a sudden? And time and time again, they're using somebody else to do all of these things.
They're not doing it themselves. They didn't learn the skills in that coaching program or whatever they chose to pay money to and into to actually find deals themselves. They, they learned generally how to operate the business or at like big high level, big picture of like how it's supposed to work. And then got funneled into these other products that people are offering to do all this stuff for you, but they're not good. Like they're not good products. They're overcharging on data. They're overcharging on skip tracing.
They're overcharging and overselling what they're delivering to you. And as a result, you're getting bad data, bad information and spending money on real money on real marketing, mail, whatever it is that's going out that is not producing results. And then people come and they feel almost like helpless to like save me, save me. I've spent so much money and I have nothing to show for it at this point in time. So how do you, that's kind of the point of this podcast. I think it's for people to avoid that.
I don't want that for anybody. don't want anybody to fall into the trap of spending 30, 40, $50,000 and not having returns on that investment. That's heartbreaking. I could ruin people.
Clay Hepler (11:37)
Yeah, yeah, I think that
Justin Piche (11:38)
So how,
no go ahead.
Clay Hepler (11:42)
Yeah, I think that the most important thing here is, ⁓ I think at this point, if you listen to a true operator, you can deduce who's a true operator just by how they talk. That's my opinion. That's not to say that other people don't fall for people that are good at marketing. ⁓ But I think that you really can see someone who's a good operator if you listen to enough people. So if you're
Deciding whether or not you do a coaching program not Justin nor I have any course. We don't have a course like neither one of us sell a course You know, we do private coaching ⁓ but we don't we don't have like in private coaching is mostly for people who are experienced and they want a little bit of extra help and we Cap that right. We don't have any more like we don't sell anything. So You know for for someone who is selling a course you want them to be an operator
in today's day and age and really just know what they're talking about. Like just syndicate what other investors are talking about and try to realize like if someone's sensationalizing something, like it's so easy, land investor is still the blue ocean. Yes, it's still much easier than household sailing but using that type of language is selling language, right? So I think watching out for sensationalized language.
watching for people that have gone from one one of the biggest gurus in the space, who by the way is like
has gone from household selling and lease options to land now, right? And you you never really know the intentions, but if you're primarily an educator first, versus an operator first, then there's a problem. ⁓ And then obviously, there's the massive marketing machine. Like if you're funneling people just to this, versus, you know, having other forms of monetization, that's not just a course.
maybe you're to service like that's obviously a little bit different. But those are patterns that I've seen influencers shifting, no track record whatsoever not being an operator having this massive marketing machine is is usually where you start to see this person is truly an influencer and not an operator. What do you think?
Justin Piche (13:59)
Yeah,
I agree. I mean, we know how these education businesses are set up, right? They're built around hype, they're built around selling a dream, and there's tiers of offerings. So like if you go on and you get a Facebook ad, if you're listening to this podcast, you're probably getting these Facebook ads just like we are. And the Facebook ad is for some course. And maybe it's a low ticket. Maybe it's like, you could buy my course for $500 or $2,000 or something like somewhere in that range.
the range is $2,500 for this course. That course is not going to teach you what you really need to know to be successful. It may teach you some basics. It may teach you a few things, but you're going to need more and you're going to spend money and you're going to be like, well, I want to maximize my return. And so then there's an upsell. There's some other upsell. There's maybe it's like the next tier of course. That's, $10,000. Maybe it's the, the group, the, the, or the, or the, the one-on-one or whatever.
The key is obviously having to be able to discern if that person is legitimately an operator who is steps above you that can show you the path or if they're the marketer that has just done a few deals, put together exceptional Facebook marketing or Instagram marketing or TikTok marketing to get you into their market, their funnel to kind of squeeze more money out of you. And it's one of the reasons why I firmly believe that
group coaching or one-on-one coaching with an operator is far superior in every single way to a kind of course upsell ⁓ program that is really prolific out there right now. Other, yeah.
Clay Hepler (15:38)
I agree with that completely,
dude. think that like, like I was talking about, like education is cheap. Knowledge is cheap. Accountability is everything. So the group coaching has to come from people that are legitimate. Right. ⁓ and whether that's like a mastermind through like, ⁓ networking with people, I've gotten a ton of benefits from masterminds or if it's like you're getting that one-on-one coaching, the one that's where you actually solve problems, but courses are static in the world that we live in.
things change so quickly. And so maybe five or 10 years ago it was good enough to buy the course at your local RIA or Acre and be able to execute on that because things don't change as quickly. you know by listening to our podcast and being a ground game listener that we're changing our business constantly. We're facing problems constantly. And so unless you're in a real time thing that gives you those live updates, weekly calls, ⁓ monthly coaching, private coaching, whatever,
Justin Piche (16:10)
Yeah.
Clay Hepler (16:38)
I also don't think that there's like that much benefit because even when you're in a coaching environment, whether it's group or private, right? You can bring ⁓ questions to the person and they can solve your core constraints like you and I were talking about on a previous podcast. So I think that's really, really great. What do you think are some like costs, man, of like hidden costs of like following a guru, right? Instead of actually working directly with someone or
Justin Piche (17:05)
Mmm.
Clay Hepler (17:08)
or doing group coaching or just figuring out yourself like a lot of our listeners probably do.
Justin Piche (17:14)
Yeah. I mean, the
number one thing in my mind, the biggest cost is that you start off the wrong way. And there's no way to run this business without spending money. mean, and I'm going to take one step back and say like, yes, you can look on market and you can do like on market subdivides as your sole deal focus. But that's not really the type of, that's kind of, that's not the type of business that we're talking about. Kind of a marketing land flipping.
getting, generating leads, negotiating contracts, building a pipeline. That's the type of business we're talking about. And to do that, there's no way to do it without spending money. And so if you, if you're buying a cheap course or going with a guru and you're using tactics that are not correct in today's market, you are going to spend money on the wrong thing and you're going to waste money. That's the biggest, the biggest cost is like, you will just throw away money on things that are not going to produce you the results that you want.
And I think another thing that is tough for people who buy these courses is that they don't fully, the gurus don't tell you exactly what you need to be successful because it's a lot more than you think. And it's a lot harder of a business. so you're going to, doesn't, selling somebody a $2,000 or $3,000 course doesn't happen as easily if you say, before you buy this course.
Make sure you have at least five to $10,000 a month that you're able to spend on this business for the next six months without any results before you buy this course. They don't tell you that. Because if they told you that, you wouldn't buy the course. You would hesitate to buy the course. But in reality, you need money to do this business. You cannot start this business with nothing. You're not going to be successful. You're going to be fighting an incredible uphill battle.
Clay Hepler (19:01)
Yeah, man.
Justin Piche (19:04)
But if they get that first two grand out of you and then they tell you, you need all these other resources, they've already got you. They've got your money. They've made their nut. They can move on to the next sucker who's gonna pay $2,000 for a dream of riches and an easy process.
Hey guys, this is Justin interrupting your podcast to say thank you for listening today. and I are talking about how to figure out if the guru is a guru or an actual operator and what is the best way to get education in the space? How do you grow? How do you scale your business? So if you're getting value from this, leave us a comment, subscribe to the podcast. We really appreciate it. And now back to your regularly scheduled programming.
Clay Hepler (19:42)
Dude, that's a great point. I actually get DMs all the time, I'm sure you do too. Like, hey, I bought this course, I would love to work with you. I'm sending out like $3,000, $4,000 a month of marketing. like, dude, don't pay me. Do not pay me. You need to be at seven to eight to really scale this business at this point. And I think gurus say, hey, you can send out a couple hundred mailers. Look.
People say you can sit on a couple hundred miles and succeed, right? Which maybe, right? Maybe if you're really good, really discerning, but the reality is the people that send those out and are successful and are used as testimonials for the gurus are the outliers. ⁓ And you can just assume, I've always assumed, I've never been hit by the luck stick, bro. I've been beaten to death by the bad luck stick, you know? And so, and so,
Justin Piche (20:38)
You
Clay Hepler (20:40)
I always don't expect myself to have the results of the best student. I will work harder than most 99 % of the world, right? But I don't get hit by that luck stick, So that's I think is the hidden cost, like trusting these numbers, right? So how do we tell, like, you know, on a very like practical level, how do you tell whether a guru is real or fake?
Justin Piche (20:41)
you
We've kind of, we've already talked about it, but like the number one is, are they an operator in the space? Do they have a legitimate operation that they are running? maybe it's like us where we've put people in teams in place to run our operations, but we're still involved. Like neither of us are completely out of this business by any stretch of the imagination. Maybe we're in it a whole lot in a different or lower capacity than we were when we were starting. Like I'm no longer comping every single deal, right? I'm no longer getting on the phone with every single seller.
I'm no longer finding title companies or whatever to do this business, but I'm still actively involved in coaching and teaching and monitoring and changing and updating the business every single day. And so if you're going to go with somebody to teach you this business, that's the first thing is do they act, do they run an active operation that is far enough ahead of your operation that you can learn significant amounts of information from them to scale to where they are.
So that's probably the first one. What do you think?
Clay Hepler (22:11)
Yeah, I agree with that. think the operator like, are they showing, you know, marketing or results? Are they showing testimonials of their students that are actually succeeding? Or is it just marketing hype? ⁓ Are they constantly pivoting to a different variation of real estate, or ecom or whatever when the market shifts? ⁓ You know, I think that those are the red flags and green flags. I always ask myself, like, why do people do it?
If you're having such a successful business, like the guys I was talking about earlier, driving the Landmows and 9-Eleven, why are you doing mid ticket? I can tell you, when I originally launched my course, I was like, dude, this would be a great opportunity for me to put goodwill out there and build a series of people that I could fund and partner with deals on. I'm super transparent about my intentions in general.
I think that people are not honest about them, right? If I add extra value here, then I can partner on deals. That's a win-win for everyone, right? I ended up within like less than a month, like a month maybe, I just killed my ⁓ course because I was like, dude, I'm not doing this. This is just, no way. It's too much and I'm running my business. It's hard to be in and out of business. But I always ask myself, like, why is this person doing it? And I think that,
If you're going to go and work with someone you want to ask them directly Like dude if you have such a good business, why are you doing coaching? Why are you doing private coaching? What's your endgame? Right and really forcing it out of them man I think is is is important like almost a gunpoint because they will tell you now if this you have this education machine obviously it's an education machine, but You might not be able to talk with the CEO right the person is actually the founder, but ⁓
Right, figure out like what's the true intention here? You know, because we're in a capitalistic society and I believe that people are good, but people have their own motives and ulterior motives. And so asking them about that I think is a really good way to tell if a guru is real or fake.
Justin Piche (24:22)
Yeah, agreed, agreed.
Clay Hepler (24:26)
So I mean, look, we're talking about gurus, false promises. What actually builds this business? What actually builds a long-term business like this?
Justin Piche (24:36)
Man, consistency is probably the first thing. ⁓ Understanding the cash conversion cycle of marketing and sales dollars or marketing dollars and spend. ⁓ The first thing somebody needs to understand before getting in this business is that the first six months you are building a machine. Like that's what you're doing. You're not going to, in almost all cases, you're not going to make any kind of substantial amount of money in six months.
You can get lucky. People get lucky. get hit by the luck stick. You get a killer deal right off the bat that sells so fast and boom, there's 100K, 200K, whatever in your bank account. You feel like you're just, you just are the best and you've won this game. That's not what really happens, right? So you're talking about getting hit by the bad luck stick. I mean, I'm right there with you. All right. It's been through stress and pain to grow the business and...
There's been one or two deals where I feel like I definitely got hit by the luck stick and it's been amazing. But having done hundreds of them now, I know that that is not normal. Right. was 200 deals before I feel like I hit a deal that was like, how did I get this amazing deal? This is incredible. And some people can get that really early on and it leads to some false, false confidence. That's where a lot of those testimonials come from is those, those lucky deals like early on, know, ⁓
Clay Hepler (25:52)
Right.
Justin Piche (25:56)
So understanding the long-term cycle of what you're building and when you can actually expect to see financial results from the business, right from the get-go, that's one factor that can build a successful
Clay Hepler (26:09)
what I'm hearing you say is like fundamentals, ⁓ Sensationalized results is not the reality. like fundamentals work.
Justin Piche (26:16)
No, it's definitely not.
Clay Hepler (26:21)
Our business is a conveyor belt. Whether you are targeting entitlement deals, sub-device, infolots, rural recreational, whatever you're doing, it is all about leads. Leads, converting those leads and operating a business. Right? And the fundamentals are planning out the entire life cycle of a lead for your system.
Understanding how are you getting the lead? What are you marketing? Where what's your market selection? How are you in taking those leads? What's your sales process? What's your follow-up process? How are you getting deals under contract those types of things are? What allow you to succeed? Justin and I doing the same exact thing that you're doing as a listener as a beginner as an advanced person We might do doing slightly better We were we were looking at our
processes, you know, we had this big, you know, kind of a constraint that we were analyzing last week. And we just said, Hey, if we just increase every stage of the process, every stage of our process by 10 % over this quarter, like every efficiency, we get to leads, we get, back to leads quicker. We get a lower offer per deal rate. We have a faster turnaround for transactions. We have a faster cash conversion cycle. We track our stats.
better on marketing, we're gonna be more successful, right? And gurus make it seem like there's some magic list, there's some magic way of operating, and the reality is it's the boring fundamentals, the boring details that hopefully you're getting from this podcast, but mostly you'll understand in your business that actually builds a long-term business. It's the boring stuff. ⁓ Building wealth steadily.
Justin Piche (28:14)
Yeah.
Yeah, it's about getting better at everything slowly rather than finding that one secret sauce. I mean, there may be, you know, edges, right? And there are edges. There's obviously edges. There's edges in the type of marketing you do. There's edges in the type of properties that you go after. But when a course or a guru is selling you that they have the edge, that's why you should...
go to their course and they have no other results to back it up other than the edge. Like that's a pretty key indicator. It's probably not, probably not the right course for you, honestly. ⁓
It's hard. mean, this business is hard. Like there's no easy button. wish I could say to listeners like that, you can get this. This is who you need to coach you. This is what you need to do. And boom, it's going to be easy. You're to make so much money. No question. But I can't because I'm an operator and I've been doing it for four years and I know that it's And ⁓ that doesn't sell. If I were to create a course and I were to tell people my marketing was true, honest marketing, that was, this is really hard. You didn't have
Clay Hepler (28:56)
Yeah.
Justin Piche (29:25)
this amount of resources, it's going to take tons of time and energy and you're probably going to be successful, but like there's a lot of factors that could make you unsuccessful in this. Buy my course. I'm not going to sell very many courses. If people aren't going to buy it, they don't want that dream of hard work and consistency and spending money upfront before I've gotten results to achieve results in the future. They don't want to be sold that they want to be sold. This is easy. Buy my course, 2000 bucks and you're going to make 500k this year. That's what they want to be sold.
Clay Hepler (29:56)
It's interesting, I've been doing this private coaching thing for a while, ⁓ and not as long as you have, right? And I've changed how I approach my conversations with my clients. At first, it was just do this.
Do this, let's look at the results. And then it evolved into, let's look at your business. And then it evolved into what are your goals? Do this, get the results. And now it's become what actually builds a long-term business is this person becomes a better entrepreneur.
And so instead of pointing and shooting, saying this is what I've done to be successful, this is what you've done to be successful. It's the context and imbuing in this person. How do you actually solve problems? Courses don't teach you to solve problems. It's very passive. And the reason why...
Justin Piche (31:00)
Yeah, it's
like an SOP. Do this, do this, do this, do this.
Clay Hepler (31:04)
Exactly
exactly and and and The reason why most of them don't get lasting results is because most courses suck and the good courses are the ones that allow you to learn more actively and they have better context But what what you want to get from the course is the fundamentals and you got to find the right person to give you the fundamentals But then once you get the fundamentals
Then it's about how do you actually build a long-term business? It's about finding the people or looking in your business to get the feedback about how to actually be a better entrepreneur. I would bet you that Elon Musk, if he came into this business, he'd be able to build a business faster than all land investors, because he's an amazing entrepreneur. And so what actually builds a great business is becoming a great entrepreneur.
And you can't sell that man. You cannot sell that. The guru hype is take my course, work with me, and guess what? This is, you you're gonna be successful, right? There are certain things that you can do to increase your likelihood of being successful. But despite that, you can still get in your own way.
Justin Piche (32:23)
Yeah. What do you think is the best?
format for people being able to scale their business? If it's not a course from a guru, which we obviously don't think it is, and maybe it's one-on-one coaching, but that doesn't work for a lot of people. A lot of people don't want to just be one-on-one and paying high ticket. What do you think is the right format for growing and scaling your business, learning to be a better entrepreneur, getting help and consistent feedback on problems or insights of problems?
from other folks. What do you think is the best format?
Clay Hepler (33:04)
Great question.
Well...
Justin Piche (33:05)
And it
might not be the same for everybody, obviously, but like if you could design the perfect, let me have the perfect, I can't use that word, there's no perfect. The most, I don't know, beneficial kind of program for somebody who maybe took a course, maybe they've been burned, but now they're like, okay, I still believe in this business, I may have been duped by some guru, but now I'm really ready to dive in and scale this business.
Clay Hepler (33:08)
bright.
Justin Piche (33:33)
What would be the next step in terms of education?
Clay Hepler (33:38)
Well...
This is...
I believe to be a universal truth that we rise to the level of our competition when we're all sitting on our computers in our basements, maybe some of you aren't in your basement, okay. I'm literally in my basement. ⁓ But some of us are basement dwellers.
Justin Piche (33:56)
Are you in your basement?
Clay Hepler (34:06)
I think that being around a group of people that push you is the best way to win. Now, the problem with a lot of my experience with a lot of like groups like this, right, is that there's one guru that does facilitate a great environment, but there's no like tribe identity.
people learning from each other, people growing and like really learning through the competition. There's events that do this, they're like land events are very disparately put together. think some of them are well put together, right? But.
The best way to learn a new skill is to be immersed in that environment. Think about learning a language. You go to Spain, man, you're gonna speak Spanish, especially Southern Spain. They don't freakin' speak English there. But if you wanna learn something quickly, you get immersed in a group, a cohort of people that have a shared goals and it's intense and you're all going after one thing.
and you're all aligned on competing. I love that. I think that that's the way, man. It's like you go to football camp, whatever, you you go to training camp. It's a competitive environment that creates change quickly.
Justin Piche (35:35)
Yeah, I I can think of a ton of examples of industries where that is a thing. I mean, all the incubator startup incubator kind of things, like that's getting into an office building with a bunch of other founders that are working to start up these businesses with a seed investment. And it's competitive because you're all competing for the same investors to build and you're all competing to build the best product that you can.
there's writers groups where they people go and they in the book, I was just reading the prologue to the book that I'm reading right now was written by one of Brandon Sanderson's ⁓ friends who was in this writing cohort and it was a group of people. They're all writers and they're just writing stories nonstop and like it's their competition. Like there are other people that are writing the books that are also going to be published and they're fighting for, you know, I don't know they're really fighting. It's kind of like a, it's like this.
intersection between competition and camaraderie that really, really helps you grow because you can see other people's success and what's working. You can desire that success for yourself. You can implement because you're ⁓ not just competing, there's also a side of camaraderie where you're sharing and helping at the same time. And it's just great. There's short feedback loops. Tons of people are trying different things.
They're giving feedback to the group. Some are succeeding, some aren't. You can discern what is helpful to you and what's not. Implement, share your feedback, help others. People can give you advice. That type of environment is super helpful. like a group mastermind, regular meetings, intense accountability, a commitment to share successes, but they're also your competition to competing in the exact same industry that you are.
So it's like directly applicable to your business. I agree. think that's a really, that's the only thing that when I was getting started, that's what I felt like learning land was. That's kind of how it used to be with in the land flipping space is in groups of investors all sharing, getting coached by somebody who's probably a little more experienced, but also sharing their wins and people asking other people questions. I remember when I was
in these calls when I was a kind of a student of LearnLand and I was learning things and people would be asking questions. You know, we'd have the coach who would be talking about their experience, but then I would be able to share my own experience with that exact thing and help somebody overcome a problem. And then somebody would also have some other random problem that I've been thinking about that I hadn't brought up. And I'd be like, oh man, thanks for sharing that. Now I can take that back and improve this aspect of my business. And yeah, that's definitely, in my opinion, the best environment for growing and scaling. So you're not in a vacuum.
You're not just looking at a course. You're not getting the step-by-step playbook. You're getting real problems, how people solve those problems, what the results were, and feedback on your own.
Clay Hepler (38:35)
Yeah, I mean, now is the goodest time as any to talk about. mean, that that was a t ball question, but I'm going to be launching an in-person event that's very similar to that. And Q1 of twenty twenty six for those listeners who are interested in something like that. Justin will be there. I'm forcing him to come, even though his wife is going to be on the eve of of.
Justin Piche (38:59)
⁓ Baby's
due early March, early March. March 10th is technically due. It's gotta be like at least two weeks before that.
Clay Hepler (39:03)
But
yeah, for sure. But that's something that I've been really building in the background. And this is kind of an unofficial official announcement on the podcast. And that was not a, you know, a layup, right? Like you didn't lay that up for me. ⁓ But but I agree, man, I think that that is the true those types of environments for guys like you and other high performers, like being around other people that are performing well.
Justin Piche (39:19)
We didn't discuss this beforehand. I didn't lay it up. Yeah.
Clay Hepler (39:33)
in the right culture is ⁓ what allows you to grow. ⁓ One stat I saw that like, what's the number one greatest predictor of someone that's staying at a company is having a friend there. And so having a friend, competitive people that helps you grow in this type of environment, I think is crucial. And the land space doesn't have that for high level operators. And so we're gonna fix that.
But we'll have more announcements over the next couple of months about something like that, but figured I'd drop it in there ⁓ for the listeners.
Justin Piche (40:06)
Yeah.
Yeah, I agree. agree. So let's wrap it up here with some takeaways.
Clay Hepler (40:13)
So look,
yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, take us away, man. What do you think?
Justin Piche (40:18)
Yeah,
well, just so, I mean, if you're new in this space and you're looking for a coaching program, you've got to avoid the gurus who are all marketing in no substance. You can't afford to waste months and thousands of dollars on a guru or a course that are going to lead you down the wrong path. And I think Clay said it really well, ask somebody the question of like how
What does your business look like and how have you scaled it and what are your goals in your business? And if you can ask somebody that question and they can answer it and show you that they are where you want to be and they've gone through what you're going through, that's a legitimate operator and that's somebody who's worth learning from. If they're not, walk away, walk away. That's one kind of big takeaway. You need to get mentorship from operators and not marketers.
Clay Hepler (41:16)
couldn't have said it better myself. ⁓ Don't chase the hype, man. Lambos look great, but lambos aren't reality. We all know how much money we're making. Let's just be real here, man. I'm not buying a Lambo when I'm making 2.5, $3 million in my lamb business. Absolutely not. I don't even think lambos are above 6,000 pounds, so you can't even get the write-off for a Lambo, you know, right? Someone's driving around with a 250.
or King Ranch, I'd be like, well, that kind of makes a little bit more sense. But dude, I think that, you know, this is a podcast for beware, beware. Look, it's the reality is this, like, there are plenty of people that you can learn out there, but many people are not the right fit. Right. It's like when, you know, you go to college and if you went to a big college, there was like a bunch of teachers that were teaching 101, right? 101 science, biology, whatever.
And you have like five or six teachers at a big college. I never went to a big college. I'm assuming this, could be completely wrong. Everyone knew the right teacher to be at, right? It's not that apparent with education and learning how to build this business and to scale this business, right? And so I think the simple heuristic is, are you still doing it? Because in real time, life changes so fast. This business changes so fast.
And the only way that you're get the right information is if you're working with someone who's living in this business. Justin, anything else before we jump off here, brother? If you know, rate, review, subscribe, give us some love. And make sure to put your favorite podcast host down below, as always. And we'll see you guys next week. Thank you, as always, for listening to the Ground Game Podcast.