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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 52: Lessons from Year One – Land Deals, Business Growth & Market Moves
🎙️ Welcome Back to The Ground Game Podcast! 🎙️
In this episode, hosts Clay Hepler and Justin Piché take you behind the scenes of the Land Scaling Summit in Dallas, where they reflect on their journey over the past year and discuss the evolving landscape of land investing.
Key Highlights
Personal Updates:
Clay and Justin kick off the episode with some light-hearted banter, reminiscing about their experiences at the summit. Clay shares his excitement about returning to an event he missed last year, while Justin discusses his role as a speaker and the launch of Terra Data Consulting, a new venture by his data manager, Courtney.
The State of the Land Business
The hosts address the concerning trend of many investors exiting the land business, discussing the reasons behind this shift. They emphasize that "average is the enemy" and explore how some entrepreneurs may not have built the necessary skills to succeed in a challenging market.
Adapting to Change:
Clay and Justin share actionable insights on how to adapt your business strategy in response to market fluctuations. They discuss their recent changes in marketing strategies, including cutting PPC spending and shifting to SMS marketing, as well as the importance of targeting specific sub-markets for better lead quality.
Communication and Team Dynamics:
Listeners will learn about the significance of improving internal communication within their teams. Clay and Justin highlight how better communication can lead to increased efficiency and accountability, ultimately driving business success.
Founder Burnout:
The episode touches on recognizing and overcoming founder burnout. Clay and Justin share their strategies for maintaining balance while driving business growth, emphasizing the importance of self-reflection and prioritization in their hectic lives.
Tech and Data Management:
The episode wraps up with a discussion on the importance of leveraging technology and data management to streamline operations. Clay and Justin encourage listeners to utilize key performance indicators (KPIs) for informed decision-making, sharing their experiences with various CRM systems and the need for a cohesive tech stack.
If you're feeling the pressure of the evolving land investing landscape, this episode is packed with insights and strategies to help you t
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Clay (00:00)
Hello and welcome to another episode of the ground game podcast. This is your co-host Clay Hepler.
Justin (00:06)
This is your other co-host, Justin Piche, and we're here to show you how to win the ground game in person in Dallas. We are here right now for the land scaling summit, which what we did you go to last year? I did. You did. I did not. OK, that's what I thought. It was a was a great event. It was actually one of the most well run land investing events that I have been to. And so I'm really looking forward to coming back to you. We're both speaking.
Yes, which will be exciting ⁓ So if you are listening to this and you did not go I'm sorry we but we missed you
Clay (00:45)
And you're doing some stuff about data, I think, right?
Justin (00:48)
Yeah, that's right. We talked about this on a previous episode, but ⁓ my data manager, Courtney, has started a company called Terra Data Consulting and she is basically doing what she does for my business for other people. She has a lot of spare capacity. She's skilled data scientist. She understands all the tools, skip tracing markets, trying to figure out what markets go into, analyzing markets and getting lists ⁓ coded and ready to be sent to whatever marketing platform you're using.
So it's kind of like a lot of folks will go and hire somebody to run lists and pull data and scrape that and all that kind of stuff for them. And when you go out and hire your own your own person to do this, it can be hard to find somebody that's the right quality. And it's one of the last things I think business owners give up because it's so important and vital to their business. But that's where I think Courtney can fill this huge gap because she has already been doing it for probably more time than most business owners have been doing it.
been doing it for me for over three years and she's really good at it. ⁓ And you know when we set it up I told her you're not gonna be able to sell this to people if it's going to cost them a ton of money. Like it has to be a logical maybe even cheaper option than them doing it by themselves depending on how they value their own personal time right. So yeah we're gonna talk a little bit about that at the the event and Teradata Consulting is kind of sponsoring the event a little bit so they've got a table back there. I think there'll be some pens
I'll be I'll be repping a hat and maybe a shirt at least at one point. So yeah, I know her her husband scholar who's one of my oldest friends are going to be there. Cool. Well, their son, they brought their little baby.
Clay (02:21)
Nice. Is she gonna be there? Yeah.
Nice. Nice. Yeah. Yeah. I'm to be doing like, don't know, Ajay is doing like a fireside with me.
Justin (02:40)
Yeah, I think mine's gonna be similar. don't know. Ajay is an awesome guy. But I was like, what do you want to talk about? Like, do you want me to prepare anything? And he's like, no, I kind of find that it's just better to do kind of like an interview and you know, all right.
Clay (02:54)
of anyone, she would be the guy that would be able to find a commonality, make the conversation pretty easy. He's just really good at that. I admire his energy and enthusiasm and kind of how he commands the space. ⁓ yeah, but I mean, man, this is crazy. About a year ago, we got together, we started the first Ground Game podcast.
And it has been a whirlwind of a year. and you know, at the beginning of the year, I think that you and I were, we kind of didn't have a plan for the podcast. were like, Hey, let's just talk. We enjoyed chatting with each other. and now it's kind of been, you know, a year of doing this every week and, and it's been a lot of, a lot of fun and we can talk about recaps.
Justin (03:25)
moment.
A year of gentleman's agreements, right?
Yeah, mean why let's bring go back like why did we start this podcast? What was your what was your reason? mean, I think our reasons were aligned but like I'm happy to explain mine too
Clay (04:05)
Yeah, I think that like first of all, I really enjoy always chatting with you. You know, that's always, you know, I feel like they're not a lot of really, really expert operators in the space. And I've always admired how you looked at the business, how you structure the business. And so for me, it's like, hey, I get to talk about land with another operator in the space every single week. Like I'm going to learn. I'm going to learn. I'm going to grow. So there was like that selfish thing was like almost, you know, it's like you try to get on a phone call with someone, right? And it just never happens.
But when you sit down and you're like, hey, we're going to talk about something that we both have really unique views on. I was looking forward to that. And there's also like, there's a dearth, I think, in the land investing space of that higher level operator. And so I think you and I have been really transparent about our business and we knew that that could be really valuable. We didn't really think about any way to monetize it, but it was like, hey, this could be a really interesting thing. maybe we get a deal out of it, maybe we don't, but...
It's honestly gonna be fun. We kind of did it from an artist perspective versus like a purely monetary perspective. I don't know if you agree
Justin (05:11)
I mean, I do, obviously, it's not completely altruistic because there are opportunities that open up to you when you put information out there for people. You can be seen as an expert, and I like to think that there are certain aspects of this business that I am an expert at, but I also am humble enough to know that there's a whole lot more that I'm not. It's kind of, for the same reasons, I feel like I learned something from the way that you do things every week. It sharpens me.
It brings opportunity for deals. It brings opportunity for talking at events and things like that, which are fun. And I just enjoy meeting people. ⁓ But there is certainly a piece of my reasoning for starting this podcast that was just as an investor, learning this business, trying to figure it out, having access to a lot of really good coaching and free online resources and courses and things like that. There was nothing that was that gave me the full truth.
There was nobody who was operating at scale talking about the challenge and like the things that suck and the things that they did wrong and what they learned from them. And that was really, I mean, that was when I kind of approached you and we, I mean, we both had this idea and I wanted to be able to talk about those things that aren't often talked about, right? It was the whole idea of you get on a podcast, you if I on, you could go listen to my episode with Seth Williams.
Clay (06:28)
Right.
Justin (06:38)
on our tips for podcasts. And it's a great episode. I, those guys, I was talking to Ajay and Seth, they're incredible, but I don't think we dove into like major issues, right? We just talked about like good things for the most part. And, and I was able to not necessarily put on a show. mean, there's a lot of good things happening, but in some of those interview podcast settings where, where a host will bring on a guest, it's always about like the good things that are happening generally in their business and like why they're awesome. It's not like the crap.
So that's what we can talk about on this podcast. I several of the last episodes have been me kind of lamenting on mistakes that I feel like I've made and what we're doing to solve them. ⁓ I think we have one episode recently, called, it's not no rainbows, no butterflies.
Clay (07:22)
The past couple of weeks we've been going very negative, But I think that, I'm with you, I think that that adds color. Because ⁓ social media is this really weird echo chamber. And when we put stuff out there, we're expecting whether or not you're very altruistic or not, whether or not you're just posting for whatever reason, there's an expectation of some sort of validation.
Depending on who you are as a person, it could be on one end of the spectrum or the other. when you actually put yourself out there and say, no man, I made a mistake, that's hard. That's really hard. And I think that you and I both have been transparent and there's always more vulnerability that you can be more vulnerable. But you also learn through failures more than, hey, I did this great thing, look at this. Right? I think that was a big thing of it. yeah.
Justin (08:19)
So over the last year, I I feel like this industry is maturing. There's been a lot of changes. We've talked about this on previous podcasts. Lots of people have been getting out of the space. It's become more challenging for you. mean, how do you feel like the land market has changed over the last?
Clay (08:36)
⁓ The market is and as a like as a whole or like my own business. Yeah, I
Justin (08:42)
I think we'll get to business next. Let's start with just like land investing as a whole. What do you think has shifted? What have been the biggest shifts in your opinion over the last year and maybe more subtle ones that you've adapted to that maybe haven't been talked about?
Clay (08:57)
Yeah, think that ⁓ it's interesting that simultaneously the market has matured but fewer people are in it and so I think the competition maybe a year or two ago Justin was like the competition with other people and now it's about the competition with the market. It's a competition between you and me and the seller, right? Which is the market tells me this
I've been validated that my property is worth more because I'm getting all these pieces of mail or text messages or whatever. And so then it becomes more, that becomes more a difficult, a more difficult conversation. And so I think the maturity of the market is not just like a competitive maturity. It's just like information maturity.
Justin (09:47)
Yeah,
I agree with that 100%. I mean, because if you think back to before any of either of us even knew what land investing was, right, but you hear stories and you could recognize what people were doing back then. The information arbitrage between a land investor and a landowner was huge. It was huge. I mean, you had I mean, even though the tools weren't as well, like they just weren't as good as they are today. You couldn't tell things as easily. But if you knew where to look, you could figure out a value of a piece of land.
much more easily than somebody who owns this piece of land somewhere else. Right. So was there's a lot of information arbitrage and that led to an advantage for you as the land investor. Tools like Zillow right tools like Redfin the ease of sending marketing to somebody and sending out a blind offer or a range offer or a text offer or whatever have made it such that sellers landowners are much more aware of what people think their property is. Right. They can go on Zillow and see every other
Clay (10:25)
and
Justin (10:46)
land parcel near them that's sold if they're in a disclosure state and say, hey, this one's pretty similar to mine. And so when somebody comes in with a 50, 40, 60 % of market value offer, they're like, I don't know, this led. And that has become obviously a challenge for the kind of fix and flip model. Or not even fix and flip, just flip model or wholesaling model. ⁓ Certainly, yeah.
Clay (11:07)
Yeah, so I mean, it's the knowledge arbitrage is the information arbitrage used to be like between you and the seller. And you and I have talked about in on the last part, because you're like, hey, I'm going to focus on a couple of states or a couple of areas. I'm not just going to just blast all the counties. I'm going to be more deliberate about that. That's how you it's like a like, you know, the little slinkies that you put down the stairs, you know, throw down the stairs when you're a little kid.
and it expands all the way out and then contracts. So contracted, the information arbitrage contracted. And the way that you expand it is you have a more deep understanding of your market. It's like, know, right, so like New York City real estate, right? Everyone knows what their property's worth, but why is it that people can still crush it? Well, because people know even more.
Justin (11:47)
Exactly.
That's a really good illusion.
Right. They know where the next building is going or the next business or the discussions of permits and yeah, they know all that. There's arbitrage there too.
Clay (12:12)
So that's how you expand your information arbitrage in real estate. So I think that that is the next step. And it's interesting, the Teradata consulting, you're talking about Teradata consulting, that's so, the marketing, I have no affiliation with Teradata consulting, but ⁓ the marketing, the front end, getting that thing right is so important.
Justin (12:36)
I mean, we talked about on the last podcast, the one that had a ton of technical issues that we just released today actually. How, yeah, mean, it's, when things are good, it's easy to neglect certain aspects of your business that are non-optimal, right? When you're bringing in revenue, when you have deals closing, when checks are getting cashed, you feel good, it's easy to sit back and say, ⁓ I know what I'm doing. I've got this figured out. But things change.
very quickly in this business, right? And that was a huge area where I just wasn't giving obviously enough attention. But the power of working with somebody like Courtney in Teradata is just like, we had a meeting a week ago and I said, every single list that we're sending, cancel. All new data, all new platforms now, like go. Boom, the next day, new filtered data, different criteria, much more focused on certain growth metrics than we were before, no more like shotgun, whole state approach.
Anyway, it's fantastic. Obviously, able to rely on somebody very good to do that. But anyway, I digress. What have you adapted over the last year from? Let's just think back to Hepler Land Holdings in September of 2024 to September of 2025. What are like the I mean, I feel like your business has gone through some like big changes like you've hired key people, you've changed the way you do acquisitions, you've changed the way you do dispositions. There's been huge shifts.
Yeah, maybe share a little bit about that.
Clay (14:09)
I think the adaptation is the standard. I accept less.
We can bleep that out, but I just don't have, I'm a mercenary for the goals of the business. And as a CEO, you should be the mercenary, right? That should be our roles as a CEO. so I just don't have time. And so when you are facing a mortality event in your business, which I think a lot of investors, including me, maybe,
you don't have the visibility, right? And the adaptation is more visibility, more accountability and.
higher standards and that just is gonna keep going up and up and up. it's like people that run a really impressive business, they just walk faster. They just move faster. They make decisions faster. They have more energy. They have quicker trigger pulls. And one of the biggest lessons for me is like I need to have a quicker trigger pull in my business and that's kind of like really foofy.
It's like more accountability, more consistency, ⁓ and then just being really thoughtful about my resources. Now I can get into the micro if that's what you're looking for, but that's a huge thing, man, that like really impacted me.
Justin (15:43)
I think that's more important to talk about because like you have to mature as a business leader or you're going to die. I we talked about evolve or die ⁓ last time. Yeah. Like it's a natural progression of going through something hard. ⁓ And I don't think there's been a year really since maybe after kind of the COVID sweep and a lot of people getting into this and this huge move of people from cities into rural areas where there's just a massive boon in this type of business.
There hasn't been a year that hasn't been without challenges. I everybody I talk to is saying, hey, I've had a harder time this year. I've had a harder time doing this. There's something that's been harder for everybody. There's people that have been operating great businesses for a long time that are seeing lower revenue despite doing more than they have in previous years. There's something to that. So the fact that you've matured in that way, I mean, that's huge, obviously. I feel like that's been pretty similar for me. I've been able to, I think.
When things are easier, just like you can overlook issues in your business where you need to take action, but you just don't quite have it in you to dig deeper because things seem good, it's the same way with putting up with other people or other things that may not be up to par. It's easy to accept subpar actions in your business ⁓ when things are going well, but when there's a mortality event or even a significant event that's going to impact your income and thus
your family, even if it's not mortal, it could impact the plans you may have. You've got to take action. You can't mature.
Clay (17:22)
Yeah, I, that's such a great point. One thing that I'm, when I'm thinking about this question and all of these questions, like, this is like recency bias that we always have. like, what did you learn on January 5th of 2025? It's like, dude, I don't remember anything. But I think I was, I was on a podcast yesterday and the land business relative to all these other real estate businesses.
Justin (17:36)
That's
Clay (17:51)
has matured really fast because you had a lot of other people from different businesses, me included, right? I was one of those guys from wholesaling and flipping. And it went from scale, scale, gross profit, gross profit, go, go, go. And now at least this is what I'm feeling. It might not be everyone. I know you're kind of feeling this too. It's like, dude, not scale, net profit, net profit, net profit, net profitability.
And that's probably a recency bias, but that's a huge thing that I'm taking into next year. And you're two of the ground game. And you and I, these conversations, I know that that's gonna be a big part of how I'm thinking about it.
Justin (18:35)
I mean, I think that's super important to talk through too, because it can be maybe enviable from some people's perspective to have this big business with a lot of employees. But if the last few years have taught us anything, it's that the market shifts rapidly. And you can go from having a ton of gross profit, ton of revenue, and your op-ex be high, and so you're good, because you have this huge gross profit. But you go through a lull.
of sales or a low of acquisitions that lead then to a little sales in the future. And with big teams, it's almost like with with big power. It makes me think of like Peter Parker and Spider-Man. But seriously, with with a lot of overhead comes a lot of stress when things slow down. Right. How are you going to make a role? How are you going to make pay for all the systems and software and things? Right. And if you let it go too far, which a lot of people have, right, it's it's it's it's hard to cut when you need to cut. It's easier to cut when you have to cut. But then
you're forced into making these deep cuts that impact your business in a much more substantial way. ⁓
Clay (19:39)
And there's also the ⁓ decisions are really affected by these types of cuts. ⁓ so we have this deal that we were supposed to close on last week.
like perfect subdivide, buy for 100 sell for 500 just like, crushing, mean, great deal, right? Easy subdivide, but our surveyor gets to this parcel land, Justin, because we had to get a survey, because there wasn't, there literally wasn't a survey in the county courthouse, was sold. This guy zoned it, his family. 80 acres, so the survey goes out there. And he's like, hey, I don't know if you know this, but.
this seat appears to be a trailer on the property. I'm like, yeah, I saw that from the satellite view. My broker went there, walked in. No big deal, we'll just kind of tear it off. I already talked to a junk removal guy, it's no big deal. He's like, no, I think there's someone living in it. So I get a call, I called the seller and the seller's like, well, I actually told your guy that, that there was a trailer on the property. I'm like, yeah, a vacant trailer, like not a real trailer. Now we're talking about a $300,000 profit deal right?
350k if everything goes well, because you might even self-list. 350k, net profit. And we're sitting there and we're like, do we buy this deal? I called the Minnesota sheriff in this county. I called the county and it's going to be a civil lawsuit. The guy thinks he owns the land. He said he's bought five acres of the 80 acres. And so I'm sitting there as a business owner. said, I'm going to take on an enormous amount of liability. Right. Enormous amount of liability.
He doesn't have any money. The guy doesn't even have like a working well. And so when you are cash strapped, or you're in a position, this is, I'm gonna buy the deal, but I might negotiate 20K off. I might, right? We've already negotiated 70K off. ⁓ But Justin, if someone's in that position, but they don't have any other deals, then it becomes difficult.
it becomes very, very difficult because you have to make these really hard decisions that could kill your business. And that's why think a lot of people have left the business because they didn't have mature enough businesses. They can't look at this problem and say, ooh, I might have to pull out of my pocket 20K. I might have to bring 20K in legal fees. And I'm okay with doing that because juice is worth the squeeze. The guy can't be living on the land rent free, but.
Justin (22:15)
But it can't be your last one.
Clay (22:17)
Exactly, exactly. But I can do that. I can say, hey, we can do this. We can make this happen. ⁓ And so that's just an example, right? An example. So.
Justin (22:27)
Yeah, let's move into kind of another section, is how has your team changed?
Clay (22:35)
Mm.
It's been pretty consistent. I would say that I tried some executive hires. tried an operations manager who I was super excited about. Ended up being disappointing. A director of revenue. The Argentina, I was super excited about him and he ended up just not making it. I kind of give the 90 day ramp and I'm like, hey, if you're going to make it, if you're not.
Justin (22:52)
the guy in our
Yeah.
Sorry. You know, just a quick aside.
It is so hard to hire the right person. So hard to hire the right person. And anybody who says they're exceptional at it, I'm not gonna say anybody, that's too much of an ultimatum. Most people who think they're really good at it probably are just really lucky. See, I am on the other side, I know I'm just lucky. I don't have any illusions that I'm this great hire, but ⁓ man, it sucks, it's tough to invest heavily in somebody, especially a critical position like that.
Clay (23:13)
It is so-
And then a six figure employee director of revenue who was not disclosing the fact that he was, he had his own business. He told me, but he was like, I'm not working at all. And then all of a sudden I'm seeing these social media posts from him. It's just like no loyalty and I'm paying you, you're the most highest paid person. And I'm like, you know, gotta either choose this or choose to help with land holdings. No in between.
And then ⁓ I've had a lot of other employees that I've just had trouble with. And the team has become pretty much the same. It stayed the same, excuse me. But we have just upgraded the standards of the position. And so now we're hiring this, I'm hiring this, you know, Special Forces COO, who I think is going to be an absolute killer, but you don't know. do not know. Everything indicates that he's going to be an absolute
Justin (24:37)
Coming
from that background, there's a certain pedigree, a certain drive, a certain unwillingness to fail. So that might be a better result.
Clay (24:40)
Exactly.
Right,
right. But you can't hire a bunch of green berets to run your business. You have to have people that are BNCs. But it's been just pruning of the tree, you know, like a little bonsai tree. I've been pruning it. And I think there's some more pruning that needs to happen. I'm going to kind of increasing the level of two more of my employees. I have to make some shifts. But it's been pretty much the same.
maybe minus three or four people. How about you?
Justin (25:23)
We have also remained basically the same. ⁓ We've had a couple of people come, a couple of people go. We haven't drastically changed marketing. We've changed some structures. One of the things, probably the biggest change that we've made in terms of team structure is we used to do no lead management. We went much more heavy qualification on cold outreach and then acquisitions managers take comping and negotiation.
And so we rolled out PPC, which I talked about. We cut that because it did not work great for us. And I talked about the reasons. I don't think it's PPC's fault for anybody listening. I think we just didn't do it well enough. ⁓ And when we started doing PPC, we were getting a ton more totally unqualified leads than we were used to. Because we're used to this process where our cold outreach team has a pretty heavy qualification criteria to go through. And so we implemented lead management. And it was really more of like a, don't want to say like a quarterback, but kind of like a
like a coordinator of sorts. Lead comes in, comp the lead, it goes here, it goes there, it goes there. We weren't really treating it like they're the ones calling, doing further qualification, except around the PPC leads. And then, know, forwarding it on to negotiator or buckling. It was more like less phone call. And now we're shifting back to a less qualification on the front end, bigger lead management team with faster and better comping.
into end negotiator. Closer.
Clay (26:56)
Just to close her.
So like a standard setter.
Justin (27:00)
Basically,
and I think that is going to be a better way to run how we're changing our business up into this
Clay (27:09)
What makes you say that?
Justin (27:11)
You know.
That's a good question. There's an aspect of speed to lead that I feel like we have not been able to achieve with our new lead manager position. When we had the acquisition managers owning their leads and going in and comping and then closing the leads, I felt like that was a pretty good speed to lead because we were so heavy on qualification on the front end that
And we would just dial up or back the qualification criteria to maintain a steady flow of essentially the max amount of leads we could handle with those closers, being able to get feedback to the leads like very quick, same day response, ideally the same hour response. But what we're changing is we're going to a basically no price qualification model, which is what a lot of people do, where you are screening for motivation, timeline, you're looking at the property.
you're building a little bit or poor, you're asking them about their price, but you're not necessarily using that price as a disqualifying factor to not follow up with them. So then it's not offer on them. Exactly, that's the main thing to not offer on them. So now when leads come into, this is not rocket scientists or Ryan, sorry. This is not rocket science. Like many people do it this way. We just haven't in the past. ⁓ But bring it into the management, get the good comps. If the price is within striking distance, straight to closer.
Clay (28:13)
to not offer.
Justin (28:34)
If the price is too high or they didn't give us a price, lead manager callback to offer a range basically to like qualify the lead on price and then forward on if interested or put them into a price motivated drip if not or send them back to kind of the cold day outreach team if they're more skilled cold outreach people that are trained to kind of do lead management as well. We have a lot of kind of cross training but that's gonna be a much better model for us going forward to be able to get back to lead people more quickly.
Clay (29:01)
So why did you, I gotta, just cause this is important. Why did you change that? you there's
Justin (29:09)
You've said this to me before and so this is closers need to be closed. I Mean that's why You make money on the clothes I mean you've got to get the pipeline set right but you make money on the clothes and so you need your closers your highest paid generally employees to be really on point on the phones all day long and second I Don't want to be relying on the kind of newer members
of the team or the least experienced in terms of comping and negotiating members of the team who are the cold outreach members to be qualifying leads and see when people give you prices, who knows what they're thinking, right? When they hear a real offer, range offer or whatever from you back, things might shift in their mind. It may be like come down to earth and you get none of those opportunities. you price qualify in the front end, you never give them the range and then you put them into a price motivated follow up. We want to get back to them really quickly with a range offer.
try to see if we can pull more leads out of.
Clay (30:08)
So you're saying your lead managers are actually giving them a range offer? They will be.
Justin (30:11)
Yeah, moving forward.
Clay (30:14)
because of
Justin (30:15)
Not everybody, not everybody, only the leads that are either price slightly out of range or no price. The goal is to generate as many leads as we can to get conversations with and by giving them a real number, generate more actual conversation.
Clay (30:34)
Makes sense? That makes sense.
Justin (30:37)
I mean, we'll see, right? I think there's probably a lot of people that do it that way. It's a good success. I just was on a call with ⁓ Dave Dennison and several other guys, and we were going over lead manager metrics and acquisitions manager metrics and what they were doing and what we were doing.
You know, just, what I took away from that was there's so many different ways to do this. And that's just a method we haven't tried yet, you know? And I think we're nothing if not quick to adapt and quick to change. And if things aren't working well, we will know very quickly and we will shift back. We can move on a dime, right, to make changes, which is kind of nice.
All right, ⁓ man, biggest wins, hardest lessons, pivotal moments over the last year. Let's go one of you. What's your biggest win from the last?
Clay (31:33)
I would say my maturity as a business owner.
It was, I just think and operate better. And I don't want that to sound.
Arrogant. But I have really become better at business and thinking about business and thinking about the right steps. And that I'm a totally different business owner this year, right now that I am next year. And I've never made that massive amount of a jump. And I think I'm really poised to crush it next year, like crush it.
Justin (31:49)
Bye. ⁓
Clay (32:18)
because of that in a really good way. ⁓ Biggest loss?
Well, the reason why I'm confident in my abilities and just becoming better is because I took so many knees to the, right? Leadership, being a horrible boss, communication issues, ⁓ impatience with my team.
Communication issues on misallocation of resources Misallocation of people all of the Immaturities of a business owner. I really experienced them a lot this year because we did really well last year and we scaled in a net profit in gross profit we did really well and
You know, at the end of this year, think a lot to do at the beginning and we'll see how it ends up, but a lot to do at the beginning of this year. I made some mistakes with a couple of hires and put the people in the wrong space. so our prof, we're going to be. What gross profit wise way higher, but our margins are, going down because of, um, some bad decisions in terms of allocating people and marketing dollars.
⁓ And so, you I worked really hard this year and made more gross profit, but net profit I might make a little bit more 25 % more maybe 20 % more ⁓ Maybe 20 % more and so you're like dude. I just worked that hard for that amount It kind of puts it into perspective
Justin (34:12)
Yeah.
And any other any pivotal moment or pivotal moment.
Clay (34:17)
Pivotal
moment. I would say a pivotal moment in my year is going to I think the ground game podcast was a pivotal moment. Yes. Yes. I've had learned a lot in this podcast man. Jamming with you, but I think a pivotal moment was going to Tom Bilyeu's house. Recent. Recency bias. Right. It's a big deal. Yeah. It's a big deal.
Justin (34:37)
which was recent.
I mean, that's a pretty big deal,
Clay (34:46)
So going to Tom Billy's house and doing that, think that I say, ⁓ I'm such a great like I've learned so much this year. And a lot of it has come from that, that exchange that relationship. ⁓ So yeah.
Justin (35:05)
Yeah. That's awesome. Thanks.
Let's see, biggest win? Yeah, biggest win was from a deal perspective, just one exceptional deal that I did with our mutual friend Ben that will be probably 50 % of my net.
So like that was the biggest win. ⁓
And then just other partnerships that have come from that. There's some key relationships that I've made through introductions from friends over the last year that I think have set just the future of the types of deals I do up substantially better and different. know, access to kind of resources and people that are operating at a kind of a different level and have. Yeah.
just more of like institutional style money and thinking that opens up the avenue for some of these larger development deals that I'm working on. So, I mean, some of those relationships are incredible that I think may be lifelong, you know, friends and mentors. shout out to Trey, you know, who's gonna listen to this podcast. So, it's one of the people that I've met over the last year that it's just been incredible. So, I think.
Clay (36:31)
Is he coming to the?
Justin (36:33)
No,
no, no, no, he's not. Ben will be there. Ben's our other partner, he will not be there. But yeah, it's just been a really good year in terms of relationships, I think, this business for me. So one really, really good deal and relationships have been the best thing. The worst or hardest lessons, you know, I think they've all kind of come to a head. Maybe it's recency bias, but, you know, looking back over the course of the last year, we are not on pace to hit our
gross profit. Like we set a five million dollar gross profit target. Right. That's pretty bold. That's a pretty bold target. I was I was super I was hopeful. You know, we may leave a scratch a little bit above half of that. I think we will be above half of that by the end of the year. But we're not even close to where I thought we were going to be by the end of the year. And I mean, there's a lot of reasons for that. But I think the number one thing is.
just a lack of focus on the basics. I don't want to say laziness because I do not feel at any point in the last year that I have been lazy in any way. I have been freaking operating full steam ahead in my opinion. I think I've just been so distracted by so many important things that there are some important things that I didn't focus strongly enough on. And so I let certain aspects of the business become not the best, right? Acceptable.
mediocre maybe. I mean there's aspects of my business that I'm confident are the best or one of the best in this kind of niche. But there are other parts of it that are not, frankly. They just aren't. And yeah, you can't be the best at everything, but I'd like to be. I'd like to be up there with the best at everything and that requires a lot more focus and attention than I think I've given, that I personally gave the business over the last year. And like we talked about earlier, or like,
a couple podcasts ago ago. That doesn't mean that the time that I'm spending isn't being spent on the most important thing that's going to maybe pay me the most for my time, but it still is an oversight and something I probably could have done better on in hindsight.
Clay (38:44)
Yeah, you know, man, just to give you grace as your friend, know, there there we just have we make trade offs trade offs trade offs are
part of what we do as entrepreneurs and in life, right? So there's no right or wrong, it's just trade-offs. So you just made a trade-off and obviously your big deal, like that wouldn't happened if you didn't make that trade-off. If you were just operating, operating, operating, operating, probably wouldn't happen. So, okay.
Justin (39:15)
Yeah, there's also the you know the immediacy of of land investing flipping income versus the slower Profits of large developments, you know, there's that competing element You're focusing thing a time on a thing that's going to pay you in the future versus the thing that's going to pay you in the next like month or two ⁓ You're right though I mean you only have so much time and as a father of three soon to be four and
Clay (39:43)
Invis-
Justin (39:43)
Business owner of you know kind of a few different types of businesses at this point ⁓ Yeah, my time can be stretched pretty thin So I tell I told this to my wife before you one of the conversations we've had about about children specifically When we had our first child Nora We were able to give her all of ours
any attention she we we we had to spare we could give to her we could pour into we can do things with her and spend time with her and take her places. It was amazing. And then we had Jacob and Jacob we were we were still able to pour a good bit of attention into but not as much as nor right now there's two children that we have that we that we need to love and take care of and help regulate and teach and turn into.
incredible human beings, right? And then we had Gracie. And now my wife especially is feeling like, was feeling like, man, I can't give her really as much as I gave the other children. Like I can't give her as much of me and be there as closely for her in a lot of situations as I could. Sometimes I just have to let her play on her own. And I can't be there to read all these things to her. And I can't teach her all these little things. you know, she learns from her brother and sister now and she's
the best, one of the best solo players, like at this young of age that I have seen, and that kind of impacted her desire to have more children, because she thinks, thought to herself, like, hey, like, I just don't know if there's enough of me to give them enough love.
And the truth is, you only have 100 % of you. We talk about giving things 110%. If you're giving something 110%, you're just getting closer to 100 % of you. You're never giving 100%. Sometimes you are, then people say 110%, 120%, I'm gonna give 150 % of myself. You're only getting closer to actually giving 100%. You've gotta spend that time doing a ton of different things. Taking care of your family, taking care of your health, sleeping, eating.
Clay (41:37)
Right.
Justin (41:56)
friends, know, living, worshiping, that's your thing. Yeah. And running your business. And so, if when I think on that, I think about the ways that I've talked to my wife about giving her love to our children and how much of it she can give to each one as if there was, you know, some finite amount of it. ⁓ I got to take that and think about it the way I spend my own time on my own businesses. anyway.
Clay (42:20)
It's interesting, it's interesting, but, or and, would say that examples are more important than action. And... I think children learn a lot through I have one, you have three. So, I'm speaking as an actor.
Justin (42:40)
There's
wisdom in having one child, I promise.
Clay (42:43)
Well, we will definitely have one to one talk.
Justin (42:48)
I just
mean one child gives you certain parenting wisdom. You're allowed to say,
Clay (42:52)
Right, okay.
Good, good, good, good. But what saying is the example thing is so important. And that's, and not only how you show up with, oh, I think about Hess, like not only how he showed up with Hess, but how he showed up to his mother. How he showed up to his grandparents and his aunts and how he showed up as a man. I think about that a lot. And that's more important than just.
Well, that is important, not more important. That is a part of the importance of raising a young man and being that example for him. ⁓ And so yeah.
Justin (43:29)
Pivotal moments.
Clay (43:35)
Crown Game Podcast.
Justin (43:36)
Ground Game podcast has been incredible. There's just been a lot of relationships. Our friendship has grown much closer. I feel like I've learned a ton and become a better business owner because of it. It's similar to coaching. We've had this conversation about coaching where I don't do as much of it anymore, but I know you still have a lot of clients. And when we've talked about it before, we've both agreed teaching something to somebody or getting asked a question is like, how should I do this? Forces you to think about the way that you're currently doing it.
without having to decide on your own business, you get to say the way you think it really should be. And through that action, you see things that you are doing wrong when you explain how things should be to your coaching student. Because you don't have the kind of bias of it's your business and you're doing it. You're looking at somebody else's and so you're saying to yourself, I need to give them the best advice I possibly can. And you kind of step out of the way you do it and give an even better perspective, which then allows you to go and change that same thing in your own business.
I see the Ground Game podcast as having been able to do that for me a lot in a lot of ways as well.
Clay (44:42)
I I agree.
That's a pivotal moment.
Justin (44:48)
⁓ All right. What about outside of work? Over the last year, what has shifted in your own personal growth or how you've been able to balance work with family, with your goals, et cetera, your health?
Clay (45:08)
would say I've kept my health. That's important. You just said health last so it kind of jumped up. I'm definitely about maintaining and being a healthy man. know, dude, just being a dad is just like, I just love it. It's just amazing. It's just spending time with Hess. And my wife, my wife and I have gotten closer.
become more religious about date nights and we go to marriage counseling, not because of there's anything like a train wreck, but because it's like going to a personal trainer when you need some extra help, right? You want to say, I want to, right. want, I want a little, uh, a little help with my shoulders or my triceps or whatever. And I know this person or hiring a coach, right? You could figure it out on your own, but why not hire a coach? So I'm all about hiring coaches. Obviously Tom bill you marriage.
Justin (45:53)
done that.
Clay (46:06)
therapists and, and so we've we've done that. ⁓ But you know, I work a lot, man. It's like hustle season right now. And so like, I would say that I am pretty pretty zoned in on working I work a ton. ⁓ And I enjoy it. I enjoy what I'm building. I enjoy the mission that we're building and help our land holdings and land man. I think it's really inspiring. And so I'm inspired to get up every day and just put my
98.999
That's it, brother. Not my 110.
Justin (46:45)
Yeah. man. Let's see. I over the last year. You know, I think I've worked probably a lot more. Over the last year. Mainly because the previous year I went on that big big things were going really well. I think that's kind of part of it. Things were going really well. I got in some critical hires and I went on that big big Europe vacation for six weeks with the family, which was kind of felt like a season of rest. I worked about.
hours that have had like four hours a day type of thing or even less sometimes. But this then I got back and things were good still but I felt like this urge to grow and scale and so the last year has been a lot of just a lot of growth and a bunch of different avenues. Partnerships, big deals, the team, training the team, training the leaders of the team and there's been oversights and failures but I feel like that you know definitely
also feels like kind of a hustle season for me, but I have this forcing function, this beautiful, wonderful forcing function that prevents me from working anymore, ⁓ which is my family who also need me to be present and be there. And my wife is like, she's amazing. I I think I hope we would all say that our wives are amazing. But she is a partner who has just incredibly high standards and is not afraid to call me out.
if I am not meeting those standards. Not in like a nagging kind of way, although sometimes in the moment it can feel that way. But in a truly loving, like we are partners and I want the best possible for you and for your relationship with me and for your relationship with your children. And so when I stop and think, I just think about how grateful I am to have her as that forcing function. I think my bent would be to work even more
And like we just talked about, you have 100%. So if I work more, I have to give up something else. So up until now, most of the things I've given up have just been things that impact me. Maybe I haven't worked out as much or slept as much as I otherwise would. It's a really important thing. So I think I need to figure that out myself. But the next thing that could possibly be interfered with, honestly, is family, because that's all the majority of the rest of time. And I don't want that to happen.
And she also really doesn't want that to happen. But she also won't just let it happen. She won't let the worst of me take more time away from the family. it's kind of, yeah, it's good. I mean, it's good to have a partner that sharpens you, honestly.
Clay (49:28)
Same with me, my wife has incredibly high standards and she's not afraid to be vocal about that.
Justin (49:35)
Exactly. ⁓ man. All right. Well, what do you think about the next year? mean, what's ahead for the ground game? What's ahead for land man, hepler or hepler land holdings and just like life in general? What do think?
Clay (49:56)
I'm going to spin it back on you because I've going first. Yeah. I know you got the questions, but I've been hogging the spotlight, man. And I can, can then jump in.
Justin (49:59)
Yeah,
What is next? ⁓ So probably the biggest thing over the next year is we're having another kid in March. That would be by far the biggest life event that happens over the next year, which I'm really excited about. ⁓ We're to be totally surprised. We were with the last one. We'll see. We don't know. Boy, girl. Whatever God gives, I'll be happy for her. for Amen. ⁓
Business-wise, man, we're really just going back to optimum at scale. That's what I like to say to my team. We're going back to optimum at scale. No more are we going to deal with a bunch of random stuff. We're going to be really focused, but we're going to operate on a higher scale because we have the team and infrastructure to operate on a higher scale. Really focus on data, really focus on the markets we're going after, really focused on the process of how we close properties. We've been able to just let volume
make money for us. But we've said this a few times. Sumner said it at the Denver event. We're in the skill era. Like we can't afford to just like let volume go. Just be the big, you know, a big guy that sends a lot of marketing out and let whatever trickles down. Like we've got to be better at every single piece of the business to perform at the level I expect. So that is a huge focus. Money wise? Yeah.
Clay (51:28)
What's your goal?
What's your gross profit goal?
Justin (51:33)
I'm not, you know what? I don't have a gross profit goal. I have a net profit goal. But I'm not gonna share it yet. Maybe we'll talk about after I do annual planning. I'll give my net.
Clay (51:37)
You have a net profit? Okay.
Justin (51:45)
Yeah. I want to refine it into something that is that is just barely baked and just barely chew. That's kind of my that's my like, like, there's 80 % chance we don't make it. But if we freaking bust it, we will make that's the kind of goal I want to set.
Clay (51:50)
Holy
That's fair.
Justin (52:05)
I mean, ⁓ maybe off the top of my head, two and a half million, that would be my, that's like top of my head. ⁓ I reserve the right to change my mind and sharpen that. ⁓ Otherwise just more big deals. I'm working on some funds, ⁓ companion funds to some of the development deals that I'm working on right now. Most specifically,
Clay (52:12)
That's great.
I will write that down.
Justin (52:35)
note fund, ⁓ needing a liquidity pool, if we're gonna offer owner financing, seller financing on some of these development deals. Because as you know, when you're a dealer, when you're somebody who is creating inventory, improving property to create inventory, you sell those properties on terms, you have to pay all the taxes for that property in the year that you sell it. So if you don't have a liquidity vehicle to cash out of your notes from a development, and you have investors
Clay (53:00)
You
any money? Yeah.
Justin (53:02)
You're
not going make money. Not only are you not going make money, your investors are going have a big, fat tax bill. So you need to be able to originate the note, sell the note, take the loss from the sale because you're going to sell the note for a value than what the principal is worth, and actually pay taxes on the income that you made in that year. I it's pretty critical. Otherwise, you can't offer owner financing. Or you have to restrict it to a very small number of properties that you rent. So that's something I'm working on right now. It's exciting.
That'll be a big part of next year, think. Raising for that and operating.
Clay (53:37)
That's awesome,
Justin (53:39)
Goodbye you.
Clay (53:44)
So personally, I'm inspired to get into some martial arts next year. Oh, nice. Yeah, so I'm gonna do some Krav Maga, which Krav Maga is Israeli defensive forces, know, and some boxing. I wanna get into some martial arts, learn.
Justin (54:01)
think you're young enough where you might not get super injured. have a bunch of friends who started doing martial arts in their mid to late 30s and after a few months of it, we're just bruised and battered and aching and broken. So I think this is the right time to get into it. Now, before you get that, that ain't.
Clay (54:26)
The touch brews, know, yeah, but okay, so martial arts that's huge I'm gonna do some so my wife and I joined a club and there's some Duck hunting and skeet shooting and stuff like that. I'm gonna get into that. So I'm really pumped about that So that's some kind of personal stuff and then just keep it keep up my health. Um, and so on the personal side, that's That's really what what I'm gonna be doing My wife and I have a couple of trips. We have two weddings in Europe
Next summer, we're gonna do what you did, right? So we got a wedding in Sicily. So we're gonna be in Italy for like three weeks. And then we're gonna go up to London as we have family members who live in London. So we'll probably be in Europe for like month and a half, two months. And yeah, we'll have the little guy, we'll have the little guy.
Justin (55:15)
That'll be interesting to run your business over there. Get a good mobile workstation.
Clay (55:19)
It will be.
yeah, yeah, I gotta get the, right, you had the. So that's kind of like a big thing for us and then we're planning on getting pregnant again next year. Super pumped about that. And then from a business perspective, ⁓ know, I will be launching the Landman Mastermind, which you're very aware of, which I'm super, super excited about. It's gonna be awesome. ⁓
Justin (55:25)
this time but I'm working that much.
Clay (55:51)
And then we're gonna be doing some really interesting stuff. It's gonna be called the Landman Deal Engine, which is gonna be essentially ⁓ a funding slash Dispo slash TC ⁓ offer, help people fund deals, help people sell them faster at scale. So I'm really excited about the Deal Engine, which that's coming soon. ⁓ So MasterBind Deal Engine and then the main business,
net profit goals. Not two and a half million though. ⁓ We are, this is not fully baked. So I'm going to just preserve the right to change this too. But our goal is about one and half for a net and four million top line gross. ⁓ And that's, that's kind of where we want to be with with the land business. then, you know, basically, for us, it's like, hey, we have a land specific goal, which is five.
But that could be Deal Engine, that could be our land business in general. So if our land business is at three and Deal Engine's at two or whatever, that'll be, I don't really care, right? But man, I'm just looking to have some fun next year. I'm looking to really bring on a group of just killers. I feel like this year, I was swimming upstream a little bit as it came to the hires that I made.
And you know how it is sometimes you just get so excited. You're like, man, let's go and let's go and build this empire. And you get disappointed, right? Cost of doing business, no big deal, but I'm looking to swim downstream, right? With the right people, right? ⁓ Swim downstream with the right people. And so that's what, you know, that's what I'm really focused on, Justin. mean, ⁓ so, you know, bigger goals, but always about the net profit, always about the net profit. And then I got some really exciting stuff. I think the land community can really benefit from the deal engine.
The mastermind, it's gonna be awesome. ⁓ Gonna be some hunting stuff associated with it, some land specific stuff associated with it. It's gonna make it a little bit more of a ⁓ life specific plus land ⁓ and business entrepreneurship mastermind, ⁓ which more details to come soon. ⁓ But it's really exciting.
Justin (58:13)
Man, that's a lot. I'm gonna rescind my two and a half million net for just the land business and extrapolate that to be across all deals and all.
Clay (58:23)
Okay.
Justin (58:25)
set to ambitious I want to be ambitious
Clay (58:27)
Dude,
two and a half is pretty big.
I love it. I love it. Yeah, I think you can do it, I believe in you.
Justin (58:40)
I think the challenge with that is I don't know, and this is maybe my, I don't know if I'm mentally prepared to spend the amount of money I think I would have to spend to get to that net profit. In terms of OPEX marketing, marketing go after, team, quality of employees, et cetera.
Clay (59:02)
Yeah, because you probably if you. You probably need to spend.
$150 a month.
5x Rho S
Justin (59:14)
Yes, I don't know man I think it's more the quality of employees that like That you need to have the amount of commissions you need to pay for top quality closers To do that type of volume it might not even be volume like quality of you know That you'll have to do to get to that number. No, man. That's why I said, let's go Let's wait till the end of the year We'll do the annual planning and I'll come back to this podcast and I'll tell you what our actual goal
Clay (59:15)
You're right, you got it,
I love that. I love that man. I can't wait to talk to you about that. I'll remember it and you know, permission is granted to rescind it.
Justin (59:49)
I need to sit down with all my Excel spreadsheets and work through how that number is achievable because it may end up being like a $15 million gross profit number for how much, ⁓ I mean that seems a little high but, I mean as your team scales though, at least I've noticed this, and we've talked about this on previous podcasts, there's a tendency for margin to dip. I don't want to run that type of business where I'm making a 10
⁓ I would much rather keep the team the same exact size and keep gross profit. So tighten up the margin, the loss.
Clay (1:00:18)
Yeah, dude, mean, I think... ⁓
You know, it's interesting, when I hired this COO, we had these big goals, how to grow his profit. But he is a kicker. You have to have at least 40 % net profit margin. So he could triple his salary, essentially, next year. His OTE would, he could get two doubles of a salary.
but we have to maintain the net profit margin. And so that's a forcing function. So what I would say is for you, I mean, you're incredible at, know, subdivides and entitlements and all that stuff. You know, it's just like, think about the deal that I just told you about Minnesota, dude. We're gonna make 350k. You don't need to do that many of those deals to get to your, well, you do. Eight. Eight. ⁓
Justin (1:01:24)
It's not that many deals.
Clay (1:01:27)
And so it's like, okay, so then you change your, you know, know your goal, you know your goal. So we're all mercenaries for our goals. And so we do the things that we need to do in order to hit the goals. Right? ⁓ So, yeah, you got it.
Justin (1:01:43)
Yeah, see where we get. All right, That brings us to the closing. You want to anything else to add before you walk us out?
Clay (1:01:52)
Well, could, okay. Man, I think that first of all, for the listeners, you know, for the listeners who have been listening to the ground game podcast for the year, you know, we really appreciate you guys, right? Like honestly, selfishly, I would have this conversation with Justin anyway, because I learn a lot and it's always great to go. Right? Yeah. So it's great to have the conversation, but honestly, we appreciate you guys for sticking with us the whole year, giving us the feedback when we need it.
Whenever you see us in person bringing that up man, we love it man We in in and we're glad that you guys have gotten value out of it You know if you ever want to talk to Justin I we're on social media right we're all we're all on social media And we we love to talk dirt. love to talk dirt whether it's helping you guys do something Take the business to the next level doing a deal together or just wanting to talk about hey, man I have this problem five minutes of your time bend your ear. I'm always down for that type of stuff so
We appreciate you guys and here's to another amazing year. Justin? Anything else, brother?
Justin (1:02:56)
Couldn't
have said it better myself, seriously. ⁓ I agree that I would do this even without listening.
Clay (1:03:02)
Right? Right.
No, that's it. Mom. Thanks, Mom. No, so the last thing, guys, don't forget, rate, review, subscribe. And when you do that, C-L-A-Y. Right at the bottom. Thank you, guys. And here's to another 52 episodes next year. Yeah.
Justin (1:03:13)
U-S-T-I-N.
Later.