Leadership in Land
Leadership in Land is a podcast for land investors who believe better decisions are made together. Hosted by Dave Denniston, this show focuses on the leadership side of land investing, how to think clearly, act responsibly, and grow with integrity in a business that is often misunderstood. Each episode draws from real-world experience, honest conversations, and the shared wisdom of investors who value collaboration over competition. As part of the REtipster Podcast Network, Leadership in Land is built for investors who care about long-term success, strong character, and learning from others who are walking the same path.
Leadership in Land
Why He Quit Engineering for Land Investing with Ryan Love
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Episode 11: Ryan Love talk about his journey from studying mechanical engineering at Cal Poly to building a growing land investing business with a full team.
Ryan shares how he got started in land flipping, the tough early months of building momentum, and the leadership lessons he’s learned while scaling his company. We also dive into hiring virtual assistants, building accountability, implementing EOS, and creating systems that help a land business grow sustainably.
🤝 Leadership in Land Skool Community (It's FREE!)
A private community for land investors who want to grow as leaders.
🏕️ Land UnConference
A live event where land investors share real deals and lessons learned.
📊 Manage Land Deals Like a Pro with Stride CRM
Built for Land Investors! Organize leads, track deals, and close faster
🔎 Land Portal: The Data Edge Every Land Investor Needs
Get the Data You Need to Find Deals & Make Smarter Land Buys
🙋🏻♂️ Get the REtipster Newsletter (It's FREE)!
Stay updated with top real estate investing insights and strategies
🚀 Land Investor’s Action Plan (Free 5-Day Course!)
Solve the 5 mistakes that keep investors stuck
⚠️ Land Buyer’s Survival Guide (Free 5-Day Course!)
Avoid the 21 most deadly land-buying blunders
You're listening to the R.E. Tipster Podcast Network. Okay, so quick question for you. Have you heard of our school community? I just want to make sure to invite you to check that out. If you're listening to this episode, it's actually kind of old to be honest with you. And so if you want our latest, if you want our greatest content, we're putting out real conversations about leadership, decision making, building a land business that actually works in the real world. Get inside our school community where you get access to the free leadership course, plus bonus episodes, discussions, and insights that honestly just don't make it onto the podcast. So if you're serious about this, you want to learn more about leadership, get in the community, check it out, leadershipinland.com or school.com slash leadership inland. All right, let's get in the episode. Hey everybody, Dave Dennison with the Leadership in Land Podcast Generation Family Property. So glad to have you back with us, where our goal is to help a thousand different land investors be the best leader that they could possibly be. I am honored to have our next guest on with us. He's he's someone that I've seen grow in the land business. And he actually approached me, I wanted to say now it was two years ago, year and a half ago, something like that. And uh he he was just getting literally just getting going in land. He had a roommate who brought him to uh land originally, and um it's been an honor to see him go from this kind of research phase to doing it, to doing even more. Uh, I am honored to have on the podcast Ryan Love. Ryan, welcome to the show, buddy.
SPEAKER_00Thank you. I appreciate the introduction. I could tell you've you've done it a couple times. You might have your introduction down a little bit better than me, but it's great to be on here. It's a great honor. It's more of an honor for me to be on your podcast, and I've learned a ton from you. You probably don't even know, but I definitely take some things. I I I look at how you run your business, how you know we interacted at the start, and I've I've learned a ton from you. So it's it's a great honor to be here, and I'm excited to talk about leadership.
SPEAKER_01Love it, man. No, it's um it's it's uh I can't even wait to see where you're gonna be at like another two years from now. You know, just the great start that you're on. You you came fresh, literally fresh out of college, you know, doing this thing. You had a number of different options and and things you could do, and um you chose land. For people that maybe don't don't know you a little bit. Can you just tell us a little bit, Ryan, about your background and where where you came from and and how you found land?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. So I guess the background we could start. I mean, we could go really far back, but we're we'll start in college, I guess.
SPEAKER_01Yes, let's do it.
SPEAKER_00I was going to Cow Poly San Luis Obispo, studying mechanical engineering there. So yeah, the first time I was really introduced to land, it must have been my fourth year. I ended up taking a couple extra quarters, but we don't we don't need to get too far into that. So my roommate, as you had mentioned, had been doing land, and he had been talking to us about some of the deals. He's he's a good salesman too, so he definitely sold us on the on the process. Like, oh Ryan, I made 20,000 this week. And I was just like, no, you didn't, you didn't make 20,000. He's like, yeah, I did, I did. I was like, you're you're lying, you're lying. But anyways, one of my roommates started like learning a bit from him, and I was like, I should probably go down there and listen to to Rylan as he he talks there. And so I would listen to him and he'd start showing us how to put together a mailer. Lots of maybe things that we'd consider outdated now, but at the time, you know, he's doing what telling us what he knew. He was about, I don't know, six months into it. So maybe, maybe not the best course or best coach, I would say, at the time, but definitely told us everything he he knew. So I appreciate him for getting me into that. And so he he told me a bit about it, and I would try to do it on the side, right? I'd try to over the summer, you know, I'd be looking into it, but I'd have an internship, right? So I'd be trying to figure out how to comp properties, and I remember just sitting there. I'd spent some money on mail, probably, probably a couple thousand, and I was just sitting there after work, just exhausted. It was engineering, so it was pretty tough on me mentally at work, and I'd get home and I'd sit at my desk, and I remember just one point just being like, I can't do it. I can't do it. So, anyways, I knew I couldn't do it at work, but I knew that you know I could give it a shot before I started my job. And so that's what I did. I I pushed all my classes, whatever I had left for the year, into two quarters so that I could, you know, focus that third quarter and then into the summer on land. So basically I graduated, had four months in order to start looking at if I could do this or not. So I moved from California to Florida at that point and moved in with my brother. That's where I'm at now. So yeah, moved in here, had four months to really put it all on the line, and yeah, started spending a lot of money on marketing, bought a property. You know, it was by the time I had to make that decision, I was down money, but I just knew that it would come back, or I had faith that it would. So that's that's how I really got into it. And then I would say after that that four months, slowly I started to regain. It's a very long timeline, right? You invest your money now, you might be seeing the money in a year. Yes, right. So that's a bit of a tough thing, especially if you're doing another job on the side. If you're not fully dedicated, fully focused, it's gonna be hard to at least start that business as as you do, Dave. Uh, you can do it, do two businesses at once at the start. It's really hard. So that that was what I would say was my biggest challenge was finding that time, you know, to dedicate and having that faith that that it would come back.
SPEAKER_01Love it. Love it. Well, let's zoom forward in time and tell us a little bit, Ryan, about your business today. Um, and who who do you have working with you that you're you're helping to lead?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah, so I have I think yeah, the numbers numbers change here and there, but I have two people on the phones for me right now. So those I both consider acquisitions people. The goal of my whole business is to get as many contracts signed as I can. So that's my goal. After that, I have realtors. I I did have a transaction coordinator for a while there, and I'll probably be looking to hire one here soon. Anyways, uh goal is to get a lot of contracts signed. Also, I have two people on lead generation who are texting, doing RVMs, and I have someone who pulls data, prices data, so that we can text them and we can, you know, mail whatever form of marketing we're doing. So right now there's five people, and then a six I have part-time who are who will like filter data. So team of five right now, soon looking to hire a couple more.
SPEAKER_01Love it. Well, I think you're doing a great job of covering a lot of um the major bases, right? You know, doing the data and pricing takes a lot of time. Doing texting takes a crap load of time and energy, and certainly the acquisitions takes a lot of time. Um, so I would love to know with these people that you've hired, and I'm I'm sure like many of us, you've you've gone through a few people to get to your current team you have today. Where uh have you hired people? Where have you looked? You know, what what kind of tips and advice would you give those of us looking to grow our team?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. So I've looked a number of different places. I'll start out with the biggest tips I've I've seen so far about where to look to hire. And we've talked about this a little bit, I believe, before we started, but the Philippines is a good place, and a lot of people will go there for their first VA. If you're starting out the land business, you're probably not going to get an American person on your team unless you're partnering with them. So going overseas for VAs, Philippines is really good for any of those lead generation positions that don't require you to be on the phone, also very good with data.
SPEAKER_01So just some differences that oh so let me interrupt you just real quick, Ryan. So in regards to the Philippines, like where where were you specifically looking? Like what website or recruiting agencies or where did you find those people?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so starting out, I used online jobs.ph. So I think a lot of people use it. I'm not too sure. I normally stay away from doing my own employee search. I at this point now I have someone normally. I pay between a thousand to fifteen hundred dollars, and they'll search for employees for me depending on what characteristics I'm looking at.
SPEAKER_01So I have who's that? Where where did you find them?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so I have one premier, I think it's premier VA is one for the Philippines. I don't know if I'd I would I would go look probably else. I haven't had the best results there. But it's something that takes a really you have to really be dedicated and have that time put aside if you want to look for them yourself. You could have someone on your team look for them. I don't like that too much because I really want to have consistent numbers, leads, and everything. So having someone else look for me is what I've done, and they send me, you know, applications, a video of them. And a lot of times if they don't stick in that position, then you can replace them. For example, I also have um one that I use for US jobs, and for US jobs, still like I I just replaced an acquisitions manager. I don't know, I said US, I meant Latin America. But they I I had to replace an acquisitions manager. So if it's you pay for insurance, I pay like $50 a month so that I can replace them if you know their performance goes down, as long as it's something they deem as a reasonable cause, you know, showing up late to meetings, whatever it is.
SPEAKER_01So and who's who's that? Who's the the Latin America folks you're using?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so I've used Yellowberry for a bit. I looked into them and then also outsourced your tasks, I believe they're called. So there's a lot of them out there. Yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_01Well, part of part of the goal is have this podcast, and and eventually, of course, that want to give people, hey, here's all the places you could look. You know, so I appreciate you adding adding um to the list. We've um we used um remote Latinos, they they were interesting. Um, there's there's another uh firm that we've had some recent success with as well. Too I interestingly enough, with the remote latinos, we ended up they ended up finding an Egyptian. So it says remote Latinos. It doesn't necessarily always mean Latinos. I suppose part of that was on us to say, hey, we specifically want only people from this kind of uh country. We have another one as well, a gal named Ashley Hightower. She um uh we'll do South Africa, Egypt, Latin America, Philippines, so she composed pulls from a lot of different sources, too. Uh, I believe in in all of this, um, which I'm I'm working on to this day, um, is really having even like a funnel for hiring, meaning that you know you start with uh all these different candidates and you want to get it down to just one. And so building out a process, okay. We go stage one, stage two, stage three, stage four. How how do you think of that with some of the the hiring that you've done?
SPEAKER_00Interesting. Yeah. So you think funnel like how what would your characteristics be of funneling?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, just just for example, um, we've I've been interviewing new lead managers for um our our business, right? And so I hired one of these firms, uh Ashley Hightower's firm in this particular case. I think REI Game Changers is the name of that one. And so she'll see sends candidates, right? Well, I don't want to just interview anybody even though they're doing some vetting, because at the end of the day, they just want their commission. That's that they want they don't they don't really care how happy I am, they just want their commission. So uh I told Ashley, okay, here's a test I want people to take. And so in this case, it had to do with like understanding a little bit of access scrubbing to know the difference between legal and physical access, and then trying to ask have them ask questions as though they were role-playing with a prospect on the phone. So I could see, okay, what kind of questions are they asking? What is their accent like, stuff like that? So I have a chance to review that. Number one, are they even doing it? Right? So that eliminates people right there of people that aren't doing it. Number two, the people that are doing it, what are they sounding like? So I've moved from top of the funnel to kind of middle of the funnel, and then based on good people there, then I'll do like a 30-minute interview where we'll do a little bit of role-playing, I'll do some more homework and kind of quiz them just to see, okay, were they just looking on the internet, or how how well did they understand the concepts? And then they go down to a another interview, if you will, and then kind of a final, final one down at the bottom. So ideally I get down to one candidate at the bottom, but I might have you know two here, three here, four here, and so on. So that's what I mean by a funnel is there's different steps, you know, to get it done, to maximize my time so I'm not like wasting a bunch of time with people that clearly aren't a good fit.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, I appreciate the explanation. It gave me time to think of what my funnel is because I've never really thought of it. I did more of it when I was hiring the people myself. So there'd be a list of things, you know, send me your resume. That's part of a funnel, right? If they don't send me a resume, they just message you, right? Send me a two-minute introduction on yourself, I would do that. Also have them take an English test. So that's a big chopping block. You know, some people just cheat on the English test and may not have a good resume. But, anyways, that that'll cut people out. After that, if they were, for example, texting like the texture I still have today, I hired myself off online jobs pH. What we would do is have them go through live and respond. Like, hey, don't worry too much about the contents of this. Just I want you to see how you respond and how your grammar is, right? So that was the most important thing for me there was that they could write back different responses. They had, you know, some idea of what would be a normal response. And so that that was one of my funnels there. Yeah, so that that's those are the main things I can think of. I think it's definitely good to have something like that. I would normally do one interview, and at this point I'm pretty quick to hire people, and if it's not right, I think the best way is to be quick to let them go as well.
SPEAKER_01So absolutely. You mentioned taking English tests. How are you doing that? Like what what are you sending them to to figure figure that out?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so Cambridge English Test is the one I use. I think if you just look that up, it should come up. I believe it's 25 questions. Funny story, actually. Me and my roommate, we used to share a VA, our first VA together. I think he might still be floating around the land space too, because my roommate will say he's part of some big communities, and he's like, oh, he got hired by someone else, and we will laugh about it a little bit. Hopefully, this doesn't get back to him. But anyways, he scored a perfect on the English test, and we were going, we we eventually, I mean, we were new to the game, we we realized he wasn't the right one. There were a number of issues, and we go back and I'm looking at the English test, I'm like, this isn't that easy. And I was like looking at what he was typing. I'm like, Ron, he for sure on the English test. Like, we we can't let that one happen to us again. But, anyways, that's another thing where where you learn that uh as you hire more people and and learn to have them do stuff live in front of you instead of just you know taking their word for it. They might be able to speak well, but you know, writing's a completely different thing. So totally.
SPEAKER_01So you mentioned doing it live in front of you. Like, are you giving them access to your launch control or whatever, or is it in some other format that you're testing them to do that?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, just the Google Doc is what I do. If they're you know, if they're on that lead generation side, I want them to be able to email, I want them to be able to text. So I say, hey, respond to this text in a in a way. Again, I don't I don't stress, I I tell them, hey, it I don't need you to say the perfect thing. I just need to see that you can speak in the right way or type or write in the right way. And after that, I'll do some emails, make sure they know how to format an email properly. Right. So it's good. Three of each on Google Doc, share the doc with them, let them do it live. They'll be under a little bit of pressure, so don't they'll definitely mess up a little bit, but it's it's an easy way to tell.
SPEAKER_01What one advice that was given in in one of the podcasts we recorded here by Clay Hepler, which I thought was really good advice, is he actually gives the person and he'll watch them do it, giving access to his stuff. And he'll change his password immediately afterward. So he actually sees them working. So if if it's a call person, he'll be giving them, hey, here's a basic script, here's this person to call, you know, go go after it. And so they'll actually be calling live and he hears them do it live. Or if it was launch control, I'm sure he'd actually have them get in the software just to see how they navigate around. And you you're doing a lighter, more safer version of that. Yeah. Um, but but I think in both cases, you're really testing them to see how they're doing in a scenario which I think is incredibly smart and and a really, really good, good, good idea. Um, before even coming into land, Ryan, you know, I know you were in college um and you had you know some jobs along along the way, uh, internships and stuff like that. How did you consider yourself as a leader just coming into land to begin with? Like what did you bring with you, you think, in terms of characteristics or abilities, stuff you've learned, stuff like that?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so before going into land, I didn't have too much leadership experience. Going the engineering route, I knew that down the line you you'd become a leader if you wanted to go high. I don't know. I've always wanted to, whatever I do, do it the best I can. So I knew that was something that would, you know, come up at at some point. So I like to study the the way people would lead other people, I guess. So I had an idea of some things. One of the things that I I study and continue to try to do is just the way you notice a lot of the high leaders, the way they speak, how they can formulate their points clearly, they're not stuttering too much. And I think having some someone like that who can speak clearly, it gives more confidence. And trying to eliminate, I think I just said it back there. So I'm I'm listening to how I speak, and I'll listen to this podcast back as well. Try to figure out where where I can speak better and how can I say it more clearly. So I think getting behind someone who can speak clearly and all that is good. The other thing is just I have to think a little bit more here. There's there's been a lot of lessons. I would say also just really understanding, like trying to connect with the people there's you know that are below you and that you're leading and all that. So having, you know, starting your meetings off with something good that happened this week, like trying to learn something more about the people that work for you every week. But there's a very fine line there, is something that I've grown to learn is you want to know more about them and get to know more about them, but there's got to be a very fine line that I'm not your friend. And I think that's something a lot of people who would come into a business like this, and potentially myself as well, have made the mistake. And what's the balance on this? It you just have to, in my mind, call out anything you see pretty early on. You know, don't let it keep growing and growing and growing. And so I have a meeting set up every month on my calendar, every one of the people. Maybe it should be every two weeks. I don't like having them, but having that reoccur in meeting, just where I say, hey, bring anything you have about me. If I'm doing something good, if I'm doing something bad, I want to let like let me know. Right. And I think that's another thing I've learned. The the people who you want to work for take feedback and they they take it well. Not saying that I'm gonna change my whole business based on what someone says. I I do want to take into account and let them know that they can say how they feel if I'm in the wrong. If I'm not doing my part, it's it's a really bad example. And you want to lead by example, obviously. You want to be early to meetings, you want to, you know, do all those those things that are small and set an example yourself of how you want them to behave. Because if you set a low bar, they likely won't go above it.
SPEAKER_01I I think one of the things I've I've been learning as a leader. I I made a bad assumption sometimes that um people get something when I say it to them the first time. And I'm learning in in the season I'm in right now, hey, I need people to reiterate back constantly what the mission is, what the goals are. Um before I think, okay, hey, they've been told the KPIs are gonna remember it, right? Uh no, you have to constantly, you know, uh it feels can feel like getting getting on people, you know, just be like, okay, here's where we're at. What what are we shooting towards? What are we shooting towards? And uh getting getting their buy-in along the way. Any thoughts on that?
SPEAKER_00Um, I had a lot of things I was thinking about as you're saying that. One thing I do every day, I'm not gonna go back through and listen to all your calls when you're not there, but I'll go through and with the sale, with the two sales guys I have, we have 30 minutes every morning. We're gonna listen to two calls. I'm picking them at random. So a lot of people, I think, just try to look away from it. And it's a painful thing to look at if your salesperson isn't making great calls and you know it's happening, but you don't really want to address it. Having that meeting every day, right? I have it with my lead generation people too. We're going through texts. You didn't respond to this person for a day. We need that response time lower. If we had that response time lower, we'd have double the leads, right? How do we get that response time lower? So just working through that, people will give a lot of control to their VAs to just have them start running on their own because it's pretty simple, right? Texting, it's very binary. They say this, you input that template, right? It's either here or it's there. But you really don't want to get caught up in just letting them run with it and not checking it, you know, a couple times a week. So that's that's worked well for me. Maybe it's too much, maybe it's too little.
SPEAKER_01Well, it's it's an interesting thing though, right? Where on one hand, you don't want to be a micromanager where people feel like you're breathing down their neck all the time. But on the other hand, there's an accountability piece to all of it in in terms of they have a job to do, you want to make sure they're doing it well and that you're coaching them. And especially if they're newer, you know, if they've been with you like three years and they're constantly crushing it, but especially if you start saying, hey, gosh, we're not close to our goals here, you know, that's the most vital time to be on people. How do you think of that micromanaging versus letting them do their job? You know, when when are you crossing the line of being a micromanager?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So, like I said, all that time I spend looking at that, I'm gonna spend it looking with them. I want to immediately say, hey, I don't like this, right? If you're doing it behind and you're going through on your weekends managing all of that, I'd rather get it out of the way, just do it with you and give you that feedback right there. The other thing with micromanaging, I'm very careful about how you're giving people feedback on this, right? So I try to never put the blame on them. I just had today that monthly meeting with my person who's texting. And I when we go through in those meetings every two times a week, the response time isn't great. That's why I brought that up, right? So I'm not framing it as, hey, the response time isn't good. Why aren't you responding to them quick enough? Instead, framing it as, hey, what can I do to help you to get this response time lower? I think those two things are really going to change the frame in their mind about if you're micromanaging them or if you're someone who's trying to help them hit your goals.
SPEAKER_01Love it. Just something simple. What can I do to help you achieve that? That's great. Um, very, very good. What about um one of the things as a leader that I really think about, Ryan, is vision. You know, being a visionary. Some of us are are better at it than others. Um what's your vision, you know, and how are you communicating that to the team?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so I think the best way about going about this, you could try to develop your own system, but that's reinventing the wheel. So I use engineering EOS, engineering operating system. Yep. Anyways. So there's a lot there about vision, and each quarter you update what you think you're gonna be at in a year, in five years, and then you're setting rocks, right? 90-day goals. I believe Callan was the first one who had brought this book to my attention, and I heard it brought up one other place, and I was like, ah, I shouldn't I shouldn't stand by on this one. I should probably give it a read. So I gave that a read, and I think that's a very good way of doing it. And so it's still pretty new to the team. So it's it's interesting getting it going. But every week, right, going over those 90-day goals, every quarter, going over you know, longer-term goals for where you think it's going. And eventually, at this point, it's just me, so I don't think it's as impactful. But as you bring in more people who are, you know, likely going to be on that leadership team, having everyone get on the same page as far as that goes is is super important, right? At this point, it's me saying, hey, here's my vision. I haven't found someone yet, or haven't hired the right person to help me. Like, hey, what do you think? What do you think? The person I hired from the US, I'm very hopeful, and he's super passionate. So I'm I'm really excited about that. I see him in in those future positions. And one thing I learned from you as well, Dave, when we when we first met, you were having me do some research for you on the tax liens.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00And one thing I noticed from you, I don't know, you you might have needed the research, you might not have. You probably knew some of it already, but just starting people out slowly and seeing what they can do. At that point, we were thinking about potentially partnering on one of your businesses, and I think that was the interview, right? How does he show up? How does he present his data? I don't know how interest. You know, you might have had some interest there. You probably already knew a lot of it about it, but I could see the way that that you operate there, and as it was interesting, and that that taught me a lot as well. Just, and I don't, I'm guessing you agree with this, but not starting someone, especially like that, right? He's my he's a friend who is like interested in land, right? So I I start off very skeptical, like, okay, like let's have you do some comps. And then he's like getting like getting all the comps done super quick, and it's like, okay. And he's like, you know, I just called, I just called my dad, his friend in Tennessee, like he might want to buy this one. And I'm like, he's doing this on the weekend and everything. And I'm like, okay, like I can start to trust that he's gonna be there fully rather than just like, all right, let's start your full time right away, all that stuff. So that's something I I learned from you.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you know, I would say um I generally try and do that. It's when you have a lot going on as a business owner, it's very easy just to shove here, here's all this stuff, you know, go and try and figure it out. And I think um, again, something I'm I'm personally always working on, as we were just talking about, hey, what's our funnel for this role? What's the training for this role? And how can I divide up this job into these bits and pieces? Where on one hand, I want them to stay busy, but I want to keep them intellectually engaged and trying to grow into the role, and I want them to get to it sooner rather than later, right? So it's balancing that. Do you have any any uh advice on um how you're how you think about that, or maybe you haven't thought about that in terms of systematizing we have a new person coming in? How are you gonna train them on this existing role that you already have?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. So the way I do it, and I'm operating at a much smaller scale than you are. So when I bring on a new person, they're they're gonna come to the meetings I normally have, right? The person I'm bringing on for sales, and he's also doing a bit of comping, right? That I've been talking about, he's going to those meetings where I'm reviewing calls. So we'll still keep those meetings going. And the other thing that I'll do is I'll have 45 minutes a day where it's like, okay, like let's go over whatever you need to do, like whatever you have questions about, because there's a lot of times so much you take for granted, and you're not really thinking about all your processes there. So just working with them personally and one-on-one about how to you know expand. There that ton of questions come up there. So that's and then also having him shadow someone who's already in the position, right? So my current acquisitions guy is is teaching him a bit. They they got on a call and you know, showing him how he does it. He has a lot of experience, right? So they can both learn from each other. So those are the two ways, you know, have someone on your team who already knows the position, teach them everything. I like to mix it a little bit and have myself, you know, tell them I really like things done a specific way. So just make sure that's those expectations are set clear at the start. Because if you try to change it later on, right, it's it's it's a lot harder. And even though I like my current acquisitions guy, right, the the one I've had for longer, he does some things, like not everyone's gonna follow your what you know down to the T, right? He he adds some of his own flavor in there, which I'm okay with, right? Because he's been in sales for five years. So I'm I'm okay with him freestyling a little bit. Probably shouldn't be. But anyways, having like having myself on the call at the new person, I think helps out a lot.
SPEAKER_01Not sure if I answered the question or just well, it sounds it sounds like if if I'm just kind of distilling what I'm hearing from you, Ryan, of what you're doing really well, you're really investing time into all these people, new hires like this gentleman you're talking about, you're spending like an hour with him daily. You're spending 30-minute kind of stand-up meetings with different departments on a daily basis and going over, hey, let's listen to this call together, let's go over text messages together. So you're spending a lot of time with people, currently yourself. So I'm sure you have a lot of meetings going on on a daily basis. Some of them don't take very long, 30 minutes. Um, but I'm imagining you know, your calendar being full with meetings as well as just checking up on the business and what's happening, um, stuff like that. Do you have any any sort of um tools that you're using that are helping you with leadership or or systems that um outside of like a pebble, you know, a lot of people have heard of pebble uh as a CRM. Anything that comes to mind for you?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so every day people fill out, and before I get into this, I'll big shout out to Mike Balcom. Stole this completely from him, really smart guy. So might want to have him on the podcast. He might, you might have a couple more ideas on this, or just but, anyways, so I have people fill out Google forms at the end of the day. Everyone does it. Key numbers, I'm tracking. So for acquisitions, for me, it's talk time, calls made, contract sent, contract signed. Those are the four numbers I track. You could track more or less for people texting, number of text sent, number pushed to follow up us or whatever CRM you're using, response rates, might be a couple others, average response time, I believe. So that gives me some key metrics. All those forms populate into a Google Sheet. And basically every Friday we have a meeting, and I'll go over those numbers. That's a good part of our meeting. And I think that also, too, if you're not performing well, it it really shows in front of the group, and people don't want to look like they're you know dragging the team behind because then everyone else is like, come on, our our bonuses are dependent on that and everything. So after that, it'll get color-coded red, yellow, green. Did you hit your numbers? Did you have a really good day? Did you have an average day? And as you go far enough out, you start to see trends and you can set goals. Without that, it's gonna be really hard to see who's performing, who's not performing. So, and then with that data, I pull a couple key numbers like like EOS does and have those weekly metrics that I track.
SPEAKER_01So love it. Yeah, so those those those are all KPIs, you're doing it through a Google form, so they're self-reporting. Yeah, and then it's coming together in a spreadsheet. Um, one of my concerns always would be with self-reporting is the integrity of the data.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Like, are are you spot checking it as part of the process just to make sure that that the integrity is good? Or how how do you think about that? What's that like?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so I won't I won't spot check every numbers, but the key numbers I do, right? I'll I'll go through and look. I have a section for the lead generation people. My my biggest number for them is the amount of leads they're they're generated, right? Everything else there is is you know part of the story, but that's that's the key number. So I'll see. I still do all the final comps, so I'll see if they're pushing bad leads, and I'll I'll go back to them. Hey, there's no road access here. We can't have our people spending time on that, right? But I'll go back. I have a section in Slack where it tells me every time a new lead is pushed, and that's just automatically done by Zapier. So it tells the acquisitions manager, right, that there's a new lead, we need to contact them as soon as possible. And then it also tells me what the lead source was. So I can go back and I do as well, go back, check, you know, check their numbers. Haven't really had an issue with anyone misreporting that yet because it's all numbers that are easy to check, right? So if you have numbers that you can't check, then they're useless. Totally.
SPEAKER_01Totally. No, I love it. So you're making a dashboard for yourself, red, yellow, green lights. And you've you've evolved into this. Sounds like, I mean, you've you picked up some ideas from you mentioned from me earlier. Mike Balcom has uh has been great in helping you um do this dashboard. I'd love to know um as you reflect back on your journey so far, as a leader, when's been your lowest moment? Can you tell us about you know uh a moment that you you were just as a leader feeling like you were failing and and help us understand, or maybe just not doing as well, that you were frustrated. Can you tell us about that moment?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so I would say one of the moments uh that I felt like I was failing was there there's a period of time as you hire people, it it takes it takes a really long time, basically from when you hire to when you see the results, because everything in land, imagine six months to a year out. So there was a period of time where I had just gotten off the phones and had hired my first person to get on the phones. And he didn't have experience doing land specifically. There had been some sort of real estate, might not have been the best hire looking back on it. And it took a while to train him as well. So there was just a big gap there where we weren't getting a lot of contracts signed, and we go over that every week, right? So it just going ever over it every week. Oh, we didn't get anything signed, nothing closed today. And generally, too, there's just those periods where you know you have deals, have a lot of deals ongoing, and just for whatever reason, you know, and and we had a good amount of people like pushing him leads, and it wasn't working that well. So as he got more trained and got more experienced, he was getting more confident on the phones and was able to close those deals. But that was a moment as a leader where I'm like, I don't know, I don't know if my team has confidence because everyone's seen it, right?
SPEAKER_01So I think that's yeah, that that would be it's so fascinating as I think about my journey over the last seven years, that there's been several moments with certain people where I'm like, are they gonna still be working for me? Like I was on the verge of firing them, right? But then they were able to pull back, and our relationship was that much stronger. Sounds like you you kind of went through one of those moments, and some of those people have been some of my best, most loyal people, you know, since we went through that time together. And that's why I think for me personally, like uh firing someone can be hard because I've seen it where someone turns it around, right? But that that doesn't always happen either. Have you experienced that at all in your time yet, running the land business where someone was able to turn around? Sounds like you did, someone turning around. Uh, what about firing? Any any lots of firing along the way? How many folks do you let go?
SPEAKER_00I might be at I have three people or two people that were there right from the beginning, both the data people. I think the data side is a lot less burnout. Data and lead generation, depending on if lead generation is is RBMs, that's a different story. There's going to be burnout there. But I think especially on the sales, and that's where I've had the most, you know, replacements there. Had a couple. So yeah, it's it's super hard. I remember coming to the the conference, the unconference you put on last year, and that was one of the things. Uh I had someone on the phones who definitely shouldn't shouldn't have been on the phones, didn't really have experience, and that's that's something you'll learn how to identify that. And play the audio clip for for everyone in the room, and they're like, Yeah, no, you gotta get her in a different position, or she's she's gotta go. And I remember thinking like, oh man, like this is super, super tough. One of the harder things I would say, because you know, you have that relationship with them. But at the end of the day, it's if you keep letting it go, it just keeps growing and festering, and and the problem becomes much worse. So you gotta just tell them, hey, you know, if you have a different position, you have a different position. If there's no other position that they can be in, it's just not the right fit. And you just got to tell them that sooner the better. It's it's one of those things like maybe going to the gym where you can dread it, dread it, dread it, and then once you do it, you're like, you feel so good. You feel free, like the weight is just completely lifted. So definitely the hardest on that first one, and there's been a couple others along the way, but yeah, it's it's tough.
SPEAKER_01But it's it's um, I think it's always hard when you feel someone's trying, you know, they're putting in effort. It's the people that that have an attitude and don't put in the effort that it's easy, right? Like when someone's trying so hard, you want them to succeed. I had one one gal one time, uh, I I had hired her, and she was um I had hired an intake manager, which at the time is kind of the combination of a transaction coordinator with an acquisitions manager, with a lead manager, all in one role. And she just had such an attitude. Like she wanted to tell me what she was gonna work on rather than following the directions. And it was like, no, you're you're gone. It was a very easy decision to make. And she was like, fine, I didn't want the job anyhow. You know, it's like that person's easy to get rid of. Yeah, it's it's these these folks that um like your gal, it sounded like she was trying, she was making effort, but yeah, just not not not the the in the right seat um kind of a thing. Yeah, I know EOS, I believe, has a system around that too, yeah, in terms of company culture and whether where they fit and stuff like that. Well, Ryan, I I want to wrap uh wrap up our time together here um for for the day. But before I do that, I would love to hear from you. You know, uh, we mentioned a lot of different things that you use along the way, like for the English test and and um some of the other other resources you mentioned. Is is there any other book or tool or resource that just one that you think, man, land investors should should be getting into this?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. I would say EOS is is pretty transformative. I'm trying to think of a different answer. So that any any sort of tool? Did you say tool or book?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, tool, book, podcast, you know, you name it around around leadership that that you've personally gained a lot out of.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. I would say as far as leadership goes, I would definitely say I I don't have anything that compares to EOS. It really lays it out. That's really The book that I've read that's most on leadership. I was in a phase where I was reading all self-improvement or business books. Yeah. Not really in that phase anymore. Just reading more relaxing stuff. But EOS, it definitely I would I would check out, and that's what I base a lot of my things on.
SPEAKER_01Traction, I believe, is the book. Yes. Yes. The EOS system is on. Have you ever engaged like an EOS coach up to this point? Or has it been just something you've been implementing on your own?
SPEAKER_00No, haven't engaged that yet. It applies more to larger businesses. So I think eventually, probably at your scale, Dave, or even larger scales than that is where it really starts, I think, to make more sense. As a lot of it's like, oh, meet with your leadership team. A lot of these new land investors don't have a leadership team. I don't have a leadership team. You you might do you have a leadership team?
SPEAKER_01I I would say I do. Yeah. Um, because part of part of my journey the last uh uh year has been merging businesses together. So before in my main business, I didn't have a partner, but when we did the merger, now I'm I'm the vast, vast majority owner, but I have a partner, so he's part of the leadership team for sure. I have a gal that's been, I called it COO, um, which I think it is kind of a COO light. Um, so she's she's part of the leadership team. Uh, we have a sales gal that's been with me for a long time whose opinion we highly, highly value. We're probably gonna give her the opportunity to buy into the business next year. So I consider her part of the leadership team. Um, and so I I think we do have a leadership team in uh in in place. It's just not to where I want it to be yet. I really want someone that truly is amazing at being a COO and understanding systems and being in masterminds and all the the kind of things really getting into traction, for example, like like you you mentioned, which Eric is very much into. So he's kind of filling a little bit of that role to a degree, too. Um, so um there's a lot of mid-management roles that we haven't filled yet that at the end of the day, I think will be like the management team, right? Ideally, I want mid-managers reporting to me, which I have that to some degree right now. It's just not even with the volume and the amount of people we have in the team, it's we're not there yet, you know, in terms of those roles. So what about you? You gonna be hiring anyone you think, or you think this the sales guy might potentially be kind of that mid-manager guy? What's your vision for the future with that?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, we'll see how he does. Start him off slow. It's only been a couple weeks, so I don't want to get too far ahead of myself, but he's got the passion for it, and he knows that area super well, so I think he's gonna be a big part of it in the future. Other than that, I'll I'll be looking to get a transaction coordinator. I've been handling them as like one of my main roles. I've basically I do transaction coordination and and compings, but it's it's too much. It gets to that point, and I should be doing bigger things. So yeah, I think you just start to plug those holes as it becomes too much, and you can't really focus on the if you're in the business too much, you can't focus on the business. So transaction coordinator would be the first one who also potentially someone who sends out RVMs and answers the incoming calls, right? So paying Pat Live right now, call answering service, a lot of people in the land space use, paying them $1,000 a month. I can pay someone ten dollars an hour to answer calls. But again, I too many people under you could create a problem too. So it's back and forth. But those are the next two I'm thinking of, so we'll see how that goes. Or poll.
SPEAKER_01Well, I really believe, and you're you're you'll be getting close to this point, that to effectively manage people, really the max you should have is four or five, maybe six. Yeah, you know, for a short time you could have seven or eight, but you you can't effectively manage ten people. There's just too many roles, too many responsibilities. So uh I would encourage you and other people listening. Hey, if if you have a team of six or seven or eight, you really got to be thinking about a mid-manager level to help manage and think about departments and what what that looks like. But I think you're you're set up so well. You got you got um a great start, man. I'm so happy for you. And uh any other final thoughts? You want to leave with with other land investors and leave with us about leadership and and uh whatnot?
SPEAKER_00Lead other land investors about leadership? What was that?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, yeah. Any final thoughts?
SPEAKER_00You want to leave with leave with us about leadership? Yeah, I think I said most of what I had there. I've haven't been a leader for that long, so everything I say, I take with a grain of salt. But it's a really exciting, and I think that's the most important characteristic of someone running a business, right? How do they lead? How do they manage people? And it's something that I'm super passionate about and always wanting to learn more. So it's great hearing everything that you had today to say and always looking over at you, even if even if you don't know, I'm looking over at you and trying to take some bits and pieces there. So it's it's an honor to be here and I appreciate you having me on.
SPEAKER_01Thank you, Ryan. Thank you for being with us.
SPEAKER_00Thanks, Dave.