Joe:  Welcome. This is the Real Estate Investing Mastery Podcast.

Joe:  What's up, guys? Joe McCall here with Seth Williams, the one and only from REtipster. Seth, how are you, man?

Seth:  Hey, Joe. I'm doing good. Thanks for having me.

Joe:  Good to see you. You're in Michigan, am I right?

Seth:  Yeah, you got it. Grand Rapids, Michigan. Yeah.

Joe:  You know, I gave you a deal a long time ago, I thought. And I remember… What happened with that deal? Do you remember?

Seth:  The seller basically flaked out and like, yeah, I'm not going to do this. So I got it to the title company and they just never, never closed. But thanks anyway for trying.

Joe:  That was a long time ago. I was just getting into land. I somehow found this deal up in Michigan and I was just too busy. I don't want to mess with it. I knew you were up there and I sent it to you. I remember you saying, hey, I'll share some of this something with you. I said, no, don't worry about it. But you've been doing really well lately, it seems like. I just see you everywhere online. Your podcast is exploding. Your blog has always been awesome. I love reading your blog. The amount of quality, the high quality you have on your blog and your podcasts is very evident. I mean, you are a, I don't want to call you a perfectionist because that sounds like a bad thing, but like you are so good at delivering high value in your content, in your courses, in your videos. And so good for you. Congratulations. Thanks for being so consistent with the years, right?  Seth:  Yeah, I appreciate the calories. It's a ton of work, but it's a lot of fun to make something that I know is good and put it out there.

Joe:  Yeah. And you don't put anything out that's not good. So you are a perfectionist in that sense and good for you. Excellent. It's all about excellence. So, okay, man. So if people don't know you, Seth, would you give a quick introduction? You know, how did you get into real estate investingreal quick? And then when and why did you start REtipster.com?

Seth:  Yeah, so I got into real estate, like actually doing deals was probably in like early 2009. I had sort of floundered and struggled with houses for a long time, trying to do rentals and house flips and stuff. I just couldn't figure it out, couldn't figured out how to actually find good deals and all of this. And I discovered land and land worked really well almost right away and it didn't require nearly as much upfront capital to get started, at least not at the time. And response rates were through the roof every time I'd send mail out and it was just awesome. In a much simpler asset class to work with. And so I did really well at that. And about five years later in 2012, I had discovered some other bloggers on the internet and I saw them doing really cool things, teaching the world for free based on what they knew and finding interesting ways to monetize that without like selling anything. And I thought, you know, I could do that. Like I kind of have this little library of knowledge in my head. What if I tried my hand at blogging? So I did, and it was a ton of fun. And I have kept at it ever since then. So, yeah.

Joe:  Well, your SEO juice has been amazing. I've been always jealous of SEO juice. What I mean by that is, when somebody searches for land investing, Seth is always there at the top. I mean, even AI now, right? If you go to ChatGPT or Perplexity or whatever and you ask it for land-investing advice, guess who always shows up? Because you've been so consistent with it over the years and the quality content is so good. So, excellent. Good for you. So, that was 2012. I wonder if people realize how much work it actually is, Seth, to create good quality content as consistently as you have over the years. So what does that look like for you?

Seth:  It starts with actually having expertise and knowing what you're talking about if you don't know what you're taking about you really have nothing to say I guess these days maybe it's easier to fake it because of AI like you could know nothing and it could at least bring you up to look like you're an intermediate level but to like actually have expertise and know like no no I tried this and this happened this is how it really works this is not just theory this is like real-world application it's a ton of work just to get that experience and many people do that but they have no interest in starting a blog or being public about it. They just want to put their head down and do their thing. But when you have this secondary goal of like, okay, now I need to actually take what I know and not just tell the world about it, but likeactually make it easy to understand, like really distill it down so that an eighth grader could understand it. That's like a whole other skill set. And I don't know that I always succeeded that, but that's always the attempt is to like take, you know, all the data from the real world experience and then like make it actually applicable and understandable so that anybody could do it if they wanted to. And it is a ton of work. I mean, it's like a, you know, it can be a full-time job. It's a lot to manage daily and weekly basis for sure.

Joe:  How often do you write blog posts these days?

Seth:  So I actually don't write a ton of blog posts anymore. It used to be like the main thing I would do, like every week there was a blog post. Now it's more of, I feel like podcast and YouTube stuff and that usually lives as a quote unquote blog post on the blog, which is basically just like show notes, like just summarizing what we talked about. But it kind of depends on what I'm trying to say. Like if I'm try to learn something from somebody else, then that's usually a podcast. If there's like a real world case study like I did this deal like there's this this new software or something that solves this problem I've had for years and I want to really teach people how to do that then that' s where like a YouTube video and a blog post makes sense because I can really just tell them straight up this is what you do. Here's how you do it.

Joe:  That's interesting because it used to be everything would start as a blog post, and then maybe you turn it into a podcast, but now it's kind of reversed, right? Everything kind of… Well, there was a period of time, too, where everything was a podcast and then that would become a blogpost. But now maybe it's more everything kind ofstarts as a YouTube video, becomes a podcast becomes a blog-post. Is that kind of a fair assessment there?

Seth:  I guess it just kind of depends on the context of like what we're talking about and like for example I interviewed a guy Mitch Klein a few months back Who's a specialist in like septic systems and wastewater treatment and stuff like that and like I just don't know that much about it But he's a genius and knows everything and so I ask him all my questions and he answers them and now that the information Is in that format it makes sense to start it as a podcast and then okay How do we make this a blog post or a video or something else? But the kind of the basis of it starts from that podcast conversation or as other things it's like I just know how to do this from years of doing it. So it's going to start more in a blog format where I organize my ideas and then from there we can branch out and do other things with it. And really, you know, if you listen to this, you're probably recognizing like this only makes sense to even try to do it at all if you really enjoy the work. And a lot of people hate this kind of thing and they'll never do it. The reason I've been able to do felt so long is like…

Joe:  Have fun with it, you know? It's a lot harder to do than people realize, and it's a little harder to be consistent with it over the years like you have. You know, I see a lot of people that have tried, you know, they've been good operators where they're doing a lot deals, and then they try to get into the content business where they are doing YouTube videos or podcasts or maybe create a program or a coaching program. It's really difficult to do both. For me, over the year, I started my podcast in 2011. I was doing a lot of deals and I had a lot of people asking me, hey, will you come and teach us at our local real estate club how to do the same thing? And then I was hearing about this thing called podcasting and I remember it in 2011 being worried that I had missed the podcasting wave, like I missed the boat. Cause like there were only two or three pod real estate podcasts at the time, but I thought like that was too many. So anyway, but I was like, I was going to be consistent with it. But I really realized quickly, it's really hard to do deals at the same time and do content marketing at the Same time. But I knew if my content needed to be good and relevant, I had to be doing deals. And so I've always had this struggle with what should I put my attention and my time on to, right? We still do deals today, but maybe I do one or two deals every couple months, right? I just love the teaching part of this better. I love selling things. I love teaching things. I love creating things like software. And so like, where are you on that balance? Have you struggled with the same thing?

Seth:  Oh, yeah, absolutely. Alright, I feel like this is something, I guess I can't speak for anybody else in our position, but I feel like a lot of educators, I don't have to like try to hide it or like pretend it's not a problem, but like it's a huge problem. It is so hard to manage this. I don't t know that I've ever really figured out a perfect way to balance it, but currently, the way I'm trying to do this is I'm focusing on funding deals, which gives me the benefit of I don t have to spend so much of my time finding the deal. That's usually the most time consuming part, but i can still understand how the deal was found. I can understand all the aspects of it. I could still be involved with it. I can still make money from it. And it's kind of solving a big problem that still is a long way from being completely solved, which is just access to liquidity, where a lot of operators can't do deals because they don't have the money and a lot funders, you know, they don't have the time or the desire to go out and find the stuff, but they still wanna participate. So even that is difficult to like really do both justice, a funding business and an education side. And so I've actually got like backup funders that I work with where if a deal comes to me and like I can't do it, either it's too much money or I just don't wanna do it for whatever reason, they're ready to go to.

Joe:  Youget a referral commission? If you don't mind me asking fromthem, if you bring them a deal, from when that happens. When you fund deals, because I just started doing that about a year ago. And it sounds great, but again, that's a lot of work. It's a lotta work to take the deals in, look at them. And then, you know, sometimes though, I've got a great assistant and a team that helped me with it, which is phenomenal. But I've often wondered, well, man, I could fund a lot more deals if I focus more energy and time on that. But you and I both like keeping our businesses lean, right? Keep it small, keep it all, right. We don't wanna have a big office. We both work out of our homes. And so there's that delicate balance. Do you really wanna grow a big business and have an office and have 20, 30 people on staff? No way, that was stressing me out too much. I'm imagining you're somewhat the same. So let me ask you about the funding, if you don't mind. The funding part of your business, are you funding your own money? Are you funding other private investors' money into your deals or is it a mixture?

Seth:  Yeah, so it's so the deals that I fund it's all my own money. Yeah.

Joe:  When you bring on… Like, if you can't handle the deal, you don't have the capital right now for this deal. You just refer it to another funding company.

Seth:  Yeah, so there's actually a couple of different funders I work with. One of them, he's actually more of like a hard-money lender, where the setup is he's really lending the money to the operator, and that person pays certain amount of interest per month, they have to put a certain amount down on the deal, that kind of thing. Whereas the other funder I work, his whole setup is to completely provide 100% of the financing for the thing, and then they split the profits at the end. I feel like that's how most funders usually work, and I can actually do it both ways as well. It's just that the amounts are capped a little bit lower than what these other funders can do. So there's kind of this sweet spot for me is when like the acquisition price is anywhere from like 20 to 100 grand and once it goes beyond that it's like I just don't have the liquidity or I don't want to do that. I just want the risk that kind of thing. Whereas these other guys are like yeah bring it on. I'll totally do that even then like a lot of the deals that come through just aren't good deals. Solike I don't want toit and they don't to do it either. So it doesn't mean everybody's gonna get funding, but it just means if there's a gap, they're like, I just am not willing to go out and do that. They're there to at least look at it.

Joe:  So, when you fund the deal, are you doing any of the work of marketing it? No. You're making money.

Seth:  I think that's actually… That's a huge part of part of what makes it manageable. There's so many different ways that a funder can do this. It's not I don't think I've ever talked to two funders that do it exactly alike. Some funders want 100% control and do all the marketing and basically do everything like the operator just dumps it on the funders lab and it's the funder's problem now. The way that I do it is that's kind of the opposite. Like literally all I want to do is cough up the cash and then could pay back but everything else it's on the operator to which means there's not that many operators that I trust that much to do that and know that they're doing a good job. So I got to be pretty selective about that. But when I find them, it makes it really easy for me. And I think the trade-off is I really don't have a whole lot of control in the process. Like if they're doing a terrible job of marketing it, it's like, hey, I kind of signed up for them to do and that's what I'm trusting them with.

Joe:  Are you taking title to the property or are you just a lender in first position on the property?

Seth:  So funny thing is, when I stand outside of myself and look at my situation, I would never advise myself to do what I do, but I don't. And actually, I realize that might sound crazy, but again, the operators that I work with, like I just trust them implicitly. Like I just know how competent they are. Like I trust them with everything. And also the amounts that I'm funding for them aren't crazy high. Like it's nothing that would like totally destroy me financially if everything went bad. And I've had no issues so far. I've also gotten into the deal of funding other funders from time to time, where it's like, literally, everything is on their plate, like the working with the operator and all that. And usually when I'm doing that, it's a lower dollar amount. So it's now like, it is kind of like weighing your risk. You know, if you're going to give a lot of control to somebody else, don't sign away everything and let them totally sabotage your life.

Joe:  Yeah, yeah, it makes sense. Okay, cool. I want to talk about software. You've been getting into the software business. You have some minority interest in some software, maybe 50-50 interest in another software. What, are you a coder now? I mean, you're just a jack of all trades. Are you writing software? Are you coding it yourself? What are you doing here?

Seth:  That's funny. I was actually just this morning watching YouTube tutorials trying to figure out how to use Claude code and it's Everybody's talking about how it's like this amazing thing. It's still way over my head Like I still don't really get what's going on. Um, have you tried to use that at all?

Joe:  I've seen people doing it and I immediately check out like no, no, no, just give me proofs at all.

Seth:  Me too. Long story short, no, I'm not a coder. I have used Google Gemini a bit to code some websites and that kind of thing, but I still don't really understand what's going on. I'm just copying and pasting code snippets here and there. But really what I'm doing is I'm a teeny tiny minority partner in the land portal and then also a 50-50 partner in Stride CRM. Two totally different softwares, but they both just solve critical needs that land investors have. You know the land portal being the data and the property research and due diligence and all this stuff and then stride being how do You organize and run your business? Like everything from your phone numbers to tracking your deals and automated follow-up and all the stuff between the two of those I mean just about everything is covered It's been a really interesting journey Not only from the standpoint of like finding really good partners who are just way smarter at what they do Than I am it's enabled me to participate in business ventures that I would just never be able to do on my own, I just thought it wouldn't work. But they're really good at what they do, and I'm really good what I do, and we can really compliment each other. And also just learning how these businesses work, and they're pretty labor intensive, especially if you're actually the coder or doing customer support, like making sure people actually use the software and understand how it works. I mean, it is just a massive job to even begin to address that problem. And I think a lot of people don't understand or appreciate that, software is it's much more than just lines of code it's a ton of work to make it click for people and then to like be there for them when they don't get it.

Joe:  How are things going? I just talked to the Apke brothers yesterday. I did a webinar with them to my list. Cool. Selling the land portal. I love it. Getlandportal.com. Check it out. Getlandportal.com. That's my affiliate link. Great tool. My son is using it right now for doing land deals. He's just sending one-off blind offers. He doesn't have the money to do a mass mailing, you know, to send a thousand postcards. So he's just doing one- off mailers. And so I said, you got to get good data and you need to find properties that aren't landlocked, wetlands aren't too steep, so go to the land portal.” So he's been doing that. But talk about Stride CRM. Why StrideCRM? And how did you guys create it? Did somebody come to you with the idea or did you have the idea and did you find somebody to go build it for you?

Seth:  It all started when my co-founder Mike Balkam and I, we had met a couple of years ago at the Land On conference and we were talking a little bit about just AI. And again, this is like 24 plus months ago and I saw his clear passion for it and I also thought it was really cool. So the idea came to my head, what if we like taught a course on AI? Like how do you go from nothing to like kind of knowing what you're doing and having some expertise with that? So he and I co-led a couple courses back in late 2024 And when we were done with that, I was like, man, I had a lot of fun working with you, Mike. And he felt the same way, I think. And he had this idea of, what if we built a CRM? Like I know that there's different CRMs out there that are kind of like meant for generalized purposes or like other audiences and people kind of try to shoehorn it into land business or other ones that kind of address like half of the needs, but not everything. So what if he did something that actually addressed it all? And I was, like, that's a great idea, but I know how to do it. Well, what if I kind of built this and I could be the back end and then you can be the front end and let people know about it. And you can also give your input and we can make sure we build it in a way that we both like it. I was like, that sounds great. So Mike went to work building first iteration of it and then I came in and ripped it apart. We totally rebuilt it all over again. And it was in April of 2025, so almost a year ago now that we launched the And it's been really fun and really challenging in different ways just to try to Make it yeah, make it palatable and usable and not just like something that like it's fine Whatever, but actually have people be like this is awesome Like this is life-changing like I've make way more money to all these deals that I couldn't have otherwise done if I didn't have Stride by getting to that point has been challenging but very fun to actually like make something and work hard on it and see That it's really making a difference for people. So It's been an invention.

Joe: In a real competitive marketplace, if you don't mind me asking, like, why create another CRM? There's already a bunch of them out there. Did you really think that you could build something different enough that could stand out enough?

Seth:  Yeah, I think we totally have. And I actually… It wasn't until we started Stride that I started hearing so many complaints about other CRMs that I thought they were fine. I didn't really even know they were a problem, but there are people that hate these other CRMs out there and they start coming out hoping that we have the answer. For some people, it's still the answer for them either. I think that's one of the other challenges about CRMs is that everybody kind of comes into it expecting something a little bit different because especially the way the land business works now, it used to be a very cookie cutter thing where everybody we did the exact same thing and it was fine. But with how much more competitive it is now, there's like dozens of different versions of how the land business can work. Some people do subdivides, some people do entitlements, some people add mobile homes, some people just straight up flip. And like there's different logic that goes into all these things. So to make a single thing that works for everybody is kind of a challenge. But yeah, I mean, for example, and Stripe, one of the big things is automations. So like basically following up with people automatically And being able to generate and send contracts with a single click, something that used to take me like 15-20 minutes to write up a contract and send it to somebody and then they would ignore me and I'd never hear from them again. Now it's like, nope, click sent to you for e-signature and I can see when you've opened it and when it's signed I see it immediately. Just like huge time-saving tools and also tools that like redeem deals that would otherwise die a slow, quiet death. Like, it kind of keeps people engaged and talking. So, and those are just a couple things. I mean, there's lots of, you know, having your phone numbers built in that automatically record and transcribe and you can use that information to grade sales calls and that kind of thing. It's uh, you know, I can go on and on but…

Joe:  Was it built for land or just real estate in general?  Seth:  Yep, it was both for land specifically. So a lot of the templates and workflows and contracts and all that's in there, it's with the assumption that you're a land investor.

Joe:  I'm looking at your website now and it's crazy. The CRM space is so competitive. I did a search for a stride CRM and pipe drive and monday.com showed up on top of you with, with sponsored results, which is so frustrating. But anyway, good for you for making it like you have. Did you, like, did you build it from the ground up or did you build on another platform? If you don't mind me asking, like how, was that an easy process to do hard? Like I-

Seth:  Yeah, it's built on high level. So that's kind of like the bones and infrastructure on it. We basically just added a lot of automations and workflows and documents and contracts. And if you've ever used high level before, the way that they have things set up, it's just a very generalized tool with the sidebar menu that has stuff like, this is how you can set up your e-commerce shop and send people invoices for payments, stuff that land investors don't really need to do. So you don't need to see that if land investor. So we went through the process of only the relevant stuff that matters to you as a land investor is gonna be shown here. Like if you really wanna do this, if you can still get to it, but we're not gonna like waste your mental brain power showing you a bunch of stuff that you don't need to see. So, we kind of just made sure the relevant was there and the irrelevant stuff is kind of hidden unless you really want it for some reason.

Joe:  For data, you still have to go somewhere else to get the data and bring it in. But it's really easy to bring data in from the LAN portal or whatever, right? Exactly. Well, good for you. CRM running software, and it's awesome that you're doing that. It's a full-time job. I don't know. Do you guys have, do you have a big team that manages that? I'm just curious.

Seth:  Yeah, we kind of do actually. It started off with just me and Mike and Mike's executive assistant, who's like super sharp. But then we got this third party support involved and also we've hired a full-time CSM. So she's like there to make sure people get it. And if they get stuck, they can literally like get on a call with her. She'll walk them through how to do it. We've also got a programmer and other specialists who can figure out, Yeah, we've got like five of us I think now on the team. So, it's been interesting to see just how the user experience has improved more and more as we get these new players involved to really make sure everything is dialed in for everybody.

Joe:  I wanted to ask you about the direction of the market. You've got a good pulse on it from your own business that you're doing, deals, lending. You also interview a lot of people. What are you hearing right now, early 2026, approaching the mid-2026 mark? Like, what are you seeing right now in the land space?

Seth:  Yeah, I think a lot of this depends on what market you're in. I'll hear some people saying things very, kind of like in these bold proclamations of like the way things are. And it's like, that's true in your market where you're working. It may not be true in this other place across the country. So that's the big caveat I think everybody has to think through whenever they hear anybody saying anything about the way that things are right now. But I mean, in terms of like, the funding front, I don't have any like total data to back this up, but I feel like some funders are getting out of the business because it's taken too long for stuff to sell and just the ROI is harder to get and it's harder to even find the good deals to fund in the first place. So I feel like the competition on that front has gone down a little bit. In terms of mail, I mean mail is more expensive than it ever has been before and I think the past couple years people have seen their response rates just get crushed like it's just not going well. So because of that I think a lot of people have gotten out of mail which I mean again it depends on the market and what you're going after and all this what your mailer says, but I think that means that the response rates, if anything, are probably taking up like in a better direction if you're willing to play that game, if you have the money you want to throw at it, if have the good systems to actually like, you know, don't just send somebody to a voicemail, like answer the thing live. Even if you have like a voice AI agent like what we have in stride, have somebody there to actually talk to these people.

Joe:  I know we go through cycles and it is location dependent, right? There's certain states that are doing better than others because some people are either doom and gloom or they're like, oh my gosh, this is amazing. And so maybe it's a balance that depends. You do hear this constantly from a lot of people. What used to work a couple of years ago is not working anymore or maybe not working as well. But I'm also hearing from people something more encouraging. It's like, you know what, a lot people think that what used to is not work anymore, but actually it still is and there's just fewer people doing it now, so actually it's actually working better. And that's kind of what we're seeing right now. We're seeing direct mail working better than it has in a couple of years because there's just less people doing it. And sellers are actually, their motivation is tending to increase because of the uncertainty in the economy and the market and whatever. That's why I love land. These sellers just kind of don't care as much about it. So I'm seeing, I'm more optimistic, I always have been, but I'm just wondering kind of where you're at with that.

Seth:  Yeah, well, even a statement like that, like direct mail is working better. It's like, that's a big statement to make because we have to whittle down, like, what kind of direct mail, what kind of list, what kinds of offers are we making? What are we saying? How are we responding when people call back? Like there's just so many things that can screw direct mail up if you're not doing it right. So like, you know, I don't know if you have any read on that, are we talking blind offers? She's just like open-ended postcards?

Joe:  I've always sent neutral postcards and neutral letters. I've always thought that was better because I want as many calls as possible and I want to talk to as many people as possible. You know, I think sales is the million dollar skill and if you're not on the phone, you're not making money. So whether you like it or not, you've got to talk to people. Is there a reason you don't do cold calling if that's the goal? I don't like interruption marketing. I'd rather have leads come to me than me go out and get leads and there's a difference in my opinion. The quality of a direct mail lead is so much better, right? Because they're calling you and I'm answering the phone, I'm returning their call. So the positioning is a way different. Cold calling texting, we used to do a lot of that. And when you look at overall at the end of the day, and I track my numbers really well, and we do aa lot done for you marketing for some of our higher end coaching clients. When you look how much marketing money does it cost to do deal? In my experience, what I've seen, it's always been the cheapest with neutral letters, neutral postcards, direct mail. When you compare it to the cost from texting, from cold calling, I know guys that are doing a ton of texting and will have like 2,000 or 3,000 phone numbers. That's what you have to do to make as many texts as you are, and it's a constant game of whack-a-mole where one phone number gets blocked and you got to change the number and you have constantly change the wording of everything. But direct mail is simple. There's no laws against sending direct mail, but there's a lot of laws against texting and cold calling and all the do not calls, stuff like that. So that's why I've always been a big proponent of direct mail. And at the end of the day, you know, we have a county in Pennsylvania we're mailing right now, Seth. It's a neutral, generic postcard. We're getting a 13% response rate on that. We're doing this for a client who got completely overwhelmed with responses, 13%. That's what I used to see back when I started doing land in six years ago, 2020, 2019 actually. Maybe we just got lucky with that one market, but I'm even seeing in some of our clients that are doing marketing in competitive markets in Florida, we're approaching 3% to 4% response rates down there, where before a couple years ago, we were at 1% or 2% response rates. So almost double. I talked to Jesse Kwong from Pebble the other day. He said he's seeing the same thing. And I think maybe one of the reasons for the increase in response rates is there's just not as many other investors doing it. This is, again, why I prefer neutral postcards or letters because it just gets more calls. You now have the opportunity to talk to the seller, find out about their situation, build a little rapport, find out, do they need to sell the property or just want to sell a property, right? Is this a now thing or a later thing for them? Now, we send every seller who calls an offer in writing, in the mail, but the deals are from the follow-up. I just keep on preaching on this over and over again. If you get good at those simple basic things, answer the phone, talk to people, send offers, do follow-ups, you will do more deals than anybody else. You've had some great podcasts recently, by the way. Everybody should go look up Seth's podcast on YouTube and podcasts and his blog because he's got… You interview a guy every quarter, I forget his name, and you really dive deep into the numbers. Yeah. Yeah. Great podcasts. I hope you keep those up. They're fun to watch. And the last one you guys did, it was really good because he was talking about a deal, just complete honesty, like, I lost my shorts on this deal, but at the same time, made a bunch of more money on these other two deals. And so, if people listen to this, don't get discouraged. Like, stay in the game, and you will make money if you're consistent with it.

Seth:  And I think market has a lot to do with this and the kinds of properties they're going after. Like, if I were to go up and get a delinquent tax list right now and send it to a county that's kind of crickets and, like, it's hard to sell stuff there, maybe it's covered in wetlands, like I'll have a great response rate. There's a whole lot of junk I got to sift through. And, like my actual close rate on that is not gonna be that great at the end of the day, you know, because I know other people who, like there's a story, a guy whose interview is getting published next week on my podcast, but he was telling me in a separate conversation, like he had a campaign where he sent out 100,000 mailers and got one deal from it. It was like, whoa, like that's insane. And because of this, some people are just buying stuff right off the MLS now, which is like something I never thought I'd hear anybody say. But the reason they're able to do that is because they're not even really land flipping anymore. It's more of they've become a developer or like they're getting mobile homes to put on it. So they're selling like a land home package. Like they're kind of like a home builder now, just with mobile homes. So, you know, and I think it's just important to recognize, like, that can work too. Like, it's not that you have to do the cookie cutter, lamp flipping model as great as it is when it works. Like, if you got to pivot, then pivot. And sometimes you'll find yourself making even more money. I think there's more hassle involved when you have do that kind of thing. Lots more red tape you have get over and that kind thing. But like, if make more money, and if it keeps you in the game, then do it.

Joe:  I think the key to it as well is doing the research at the beginning and only going into markets where there's already a lot of activity. There's already a lot demand. And I'm not talking looking in the last 12 months, I'm talking, you gotta go look in the three months. In the last 90 days, where are buyers buying land right now? And that, you know, maybe home builders, maybe infill lots, it may be recreational land, but find those pockets where there is a lot of demand. Then what I recommend is just get a list of everybody who owns land there that meets the same similar criteria of what other people are already buying, and then send them direct mail, and send them a neutral letter, a neutral postcard, right? Get them to call you, talk to them, find out their situation, and sent them an offer that is an intelligent offer. You know, it's funny, Seth, one of the things I say, and I learned this from one of your interviews, because you interviewed somebody, and he talked about, he started putting into his direct mail. Are you tired of fake offers? And so what I do on my postcards, it says, call, text or call, listen to this 24-hour recorded voicemail. And my voicemailssays, hey, thanks for calling. Normally, when you're trying to sell land, you're faced with two options, listing it with an agent or doing it for sale by order. But now you have a third choice. My name is Joe. We buy land all over this area. And so if you're interested in selling it fast for cash in 30 days or whenever you want, and if you are tired of fake offers, leave your name and number and the reference ID on this postcard, and we'll call you back and we will send you an offer, you know, super simple and easy. And so, I get a lot of people that leave a voicemail and give me the reference number or text me their information from the postcard. And we get on the phone, we talk to them. We're averaging about 20 to 30 offers. Every 20 to30 offers that we send eventually get accepted after follow-up and things like that. So, it still works. It still works, I'm excited about. Seth, how can people find out about Stride CRM and how can you peoplefind about your podcast and your YouTube channel and where do you like to hang out these days?  Seth:  Stride is just stridecrm.co is our website. So that's pretty simple. Usually wherever I'm hanging out online, you can find me just by searching for RETipster or go to retipster.com or on Facebook or wherever you're at. That's where you can me. Happy to talk to you if you wanna reach out.

Joe:  Any final words of advice, Seth?

Seth:  Yeah, I mean, I think the ability to pivot and almost kind of reinvent yourself, like, I hate having to do that, don't get me wrong. Like it is way nicer to just have something that works and you can just push buttons all day and it keeps spitting out money. But over the past couple years, I think we've seen the ability to be flexible and change with the times. It's not just great to have, it's like critical. Like you have to be ready to do it. And I think just in the various businesses I've been involved with, I've learned that nothing is forever, you know? Nothing will just kind of be an easy ride permanently. I think land was definitely easy for a lot of years, or at least easier. And it's not that it can't be done, it just kind takes a little more. You know, you have to be ready to run a real business and, you know, have the systems in place to actually make the thing work. And I think just being willing to do the work and bend over backwards from time to time when you have too, to figure it out, is really important. So I just encourage people, keep that in mind. If you feel like you're in a rut, like that's normal, I wouldn't feel like that makes you weirder in some way. Just be ready to do the work.

Joe:  Appreciate you, man. I appreciate everything you're doing for the industry and the knowledge and the stuff, things that you're doin' to help people. It's pretty cool. So, thank you, Seth. We'll talk soon, all right?

Seth:  Thanks, Joe. Yep, you bet.