Month: June 2022

If you look at some of the most successful companies, you will notice that they aren’t constantly changing their strategies and reinventing themselves with every market change. Instead, they relentlessly build a repeatable approach to every department within their business.

Compared to other business models, land investment may not strike you as being repeatable or scalable. But in fact, it is both! That is exactly what we have done with our land investing business model–and we can teach you how to do the same.

Scalability and Repeatability

In order to scale your land, you first have to understand the concept of land scalability and repeatability:

• Scalability is your business’s capacity to grow when faced with increased production without being limited by the availability of resources and/or structure. 
• On the other hand, repeatability is the ability to perform the same sales processes over again and establish sustained growth. 

These two terms go hand-in-hand: the true test of whether your business is scalable is if the processes you applied when scaling it can be repeated, and lead to growth. 

A scalable business model yields more returns as more resources – capital and labor – are invested in it. When this can be repeated, the business model is said to be both scalable and repeatable. 

Why are scalability and repeatability important?

From the buy-side to sell-side and everything in between, our land investing business model is built around repeatable systems and processes that are never changed, only improved upon. We simply alter the software we use as needed, and we adjust offer prices based on the current real estate market: those are the only things that change.

One of the foundational pillars of scalability is building a business on repeatable processes that don’t require you to be involved in every step as the owner. The result is simple: if you focus on a specific strategy with well-defined acquisition criteria, then build out repeatable processes for acquiring and reselling land at a profit, you will have a business you can be truly proud of. Not only that, but you’ll be able to step away for months at a time without seeing any dip in your bank balance!

How to Scale your Land Business

While life sounds so much better this way, scaling your land business doesn’t happen by itself. It takes conscious, intentional, and well-thought-out plans to achieve. In this article, we will be sharing with you some of the steps we took to scale our land business, and how you can do the same for an equally rewarding outcome.

Find your Niche

The very first step in building your land business is finding and developing your specific niche. Developing your niche promotes the positive budding of relationships; people love to work with whom they are comfortable. Niching also builds your credibility in the industry and helps your business reach household name status.

Have a Clear Strategy

Defining your goals and having a clear strategy on how to achieve them is absolutely essential. Not only do goals help in limiting redundancies, but they also improve productivity in areas that need focusing on. With a clear strategy, you will find it much easier to remain dogged in your journey of scaling your land business.

Having a clear strategy involves:

Building the right structure. Your business needs an adequate personnel structure to function properly. When structured well, members of your team will be better positioned to perform at their very best, as their roles will be properly defined.

Delegating tasks. Delegate responsibilities to members of your team; don’t try to do everything by yourself, as it won’t be sustainable in the long run. Delegating tasks boosts productivity and saves you time. It also fosters creativity in your business, as each member of the team will have a unique idea to contribute.

Delegating can be difficult, especially when you are someone who likes to control the quality of all aspects of the business–but if you can learn to trust the team you’ve built, delegating will help to grow and strengthen your business from within.

Be Committed

Commitment yields favorable results over time. One of the major impeders to success is the lack of commitment. If you don’t commit fully to your cause, you’ll never know how far you might have gotten if you’d dedicated more time and energy. The results you achieve by being committed to your goals and strategies will astound you.

Find the bottlenecks in your business

It is never easy to accept when things don’t go as well as you’d planned or envisioned. It may lower your morale and keep you down for a while, and that’s okay. The important thing is to bounce back as soon as possible. Instead of wallowing, identify the areas that need improvement, then take action to resolve the issues. Hire professionals to fill particular roles and responsibilities that need attention. Once you fix the pain points, you can sit back and watch your business flourish.

Hone in on Your Strengths

At this point in your career, you may already be aware of your personal strengths and weaknesses. If you aren’t sure, or you suspect they may have changed, it’s worth taking the time to explore your strong points and pitfalls.

Once you’ve identified your weaknesses, improving in those areas is obviously going to be your next step. But what of your strengths? Those need to be developed, too–you will be outperformed by others if you do not continue to hone your skills and talents. Ask yourself how you can perform better, find creative ways to do things, and use your identified strengths to boost productivity.

Stay on top of new efficiency software

The world is moving quickly, and things are changing all the time–especially in the tech world. You can’t afford to remain where you started, or you’ll be well and truly swept away. Staying up to date with the latest software and technologies helps you to:

• Stay abreast of trends as they come and go
• Make informed decisions on how to go forward with your business
• Boost efficiency

The latest software and technology will often provide you with more efficient ways of getting things done.

Measure your Growth

As other successful businesses do, you should take inventory of your process. Proper documentation of the steps and decisions being made in your journey will help define:

• The steps you are taking, both right and wrong
• Changes that need to be made to ensure more growth
• Areas that need to be worked on and redundancies that should be removed

This process also ensures that you take into account any changes that have occurred in the market, thereby allowing you to devise ways to implement them in your model. Not engaging in the periodic measurement of your processes reduces the pace at which you can scale your business.

Stay Connected to Other Land Investors

Get involved in mastermind groups and training groups that allow you to interact with others in the space, especially those who are performing better than you are–this is one of the best ways to learn. Be mentored by them, read their books, and watch their videos. Staying connected will speed up your learning curve tenfold.

Don’t be scared to send more mailers!

If you find a good deal, you’ll be able to find the capital to purchase. Do not limit yourself by the amount of money you have in your account. If you only mail counties or target properties based on how much money you have in your personal bank account, you’ll never scale as fast as you probably want to. Push your financial boundaries! With high risks come even higher rewards–and investing in land is one of the most high-risk investments you can make.

Use Funding Partners

Many businesses will provide financial contributions if you request funding from them. When choosing a funding partner, you’ll want to find one that aligns with your goals and needs. Your choice of funding partner greatly affects the scalability of your land business, so be intentional about your choice and make informed decisions. If you are looking to get a funding partner, reach out to Freedom Land Capital to find out how we can help.

Bottom Line

When done properly, scaling a business will reduce your workload rather than increase it. The scaling process involves more work to begin with; however, you’ll need to sort through your internal systems and create a progressive dynamic that stimulates business growth. Following the steps outlined above will help you live the life you want to and build the successful business you always envisioned for yourself.

Don’t be afraid of failing–just take it one step at a time. We’ve done it, and you can too!

“Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the ax.” – Abraham Lincoln

When starting out on any new venture, many have preached that being prepared is an absolute necessity. Even Benjamin Franklin said, “By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.” Most people make some kind of plan before they launch into action. But what if we told you that too much of a good thing can turn into a bad thing, and that preparedness isn’t everything?

The intention here isn’t to confuse you (though it may seem that way at first!) Indeed, preparation is important for success – but a lot can happen between preparation and getting started. Even with the most thorough planning, there are some things you simply can’t predict or prepare for. Things like:

Failed Plans

As Mike Tyson infamously said, “Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth!” Nothing is completely within your power to achieve, and unfortunately, this means your plan could blow up in your face when you least expect it. 

Try as we might, being prepared cannot guarantee our success. There’s something to be said for preparing to fail; you need to accept that your first, third, or even tenth attempt could result in failure, and that doesn’t necessarily mean you didn’t prepare enough.

Over-Analysis and Over-Planning

Attempting to cross every ‘t’ and dot every ‘i’ can delay your progress. It can cause a lack of action, slow starts, paralysis, fear, and anxiety. If you’re anything like myself, a fear of failure may cause you to consider every possible angle before proceeding. 

The downside to this is that you will likely foresee many potential problems which cause you to doubt. You will find yourself anxious and less excited about getting started, and with that, you will lose much of the vigor you initially had.

The Question

The preparation phase is important, but it can be overdone. So how do we navigate this somewhat paradoxical advice? 

Of course, you should always prepare to a certain extent – just not to your own detriment. It is up to you to determine for yourself what over-analysis means for you and your business. Try not to let preparedness get in the way as you take a leap of faith and step out of your comfort zone. 

Contingency plans are an example of this; having them is a wise thing to do, but creating contingency plans for your contingency plans is probably going overboard.

Problems With Over-Planning

Like anything we overindulge in, over-planning comes with a number of problems. Rather than propelling you forward in your endeavors, it can stagnate your progress, and will often lead to issues such as:

You May Become Inflexible

Just as ballerinas must be flexible to create their beautifully choreographed dances, you too must practice flexibility in order to succeed. 

If you set your mind on certain plans and do not allow room for the unexpected, challenges and setbacks that arise may throw you off your course. You may find yourself unable to redirect to a new route if need be; your mind will become stuck on the timeline you have worked towards, rendering you incapable of forging ahead. 

Make plans, certainly – but don’t set them in stone straight away.

It’s Hard to Anticipate Your Pain Points From The Outset

Irrespective of the time you spend planning before getting started, it’s impossible to know the bottlenecks until you stop planning and start acting. Over-planning will simply prevent you from accepting the unexpected.

If you are prone to over-planning your projects or ventures, you may be familiar with one or more of the following:

• You are afraid of imperfection.
• You have a lot of abandoned projects.
• You bother about the littlest details.
• You are afraid of change.
• You have little to nothing to show for all the extensive planning you have done.

If you identify with one, some, or all of the above, know that this is completely normal. There are plenty of steps you can take to reframe your thinking, starting with these:

Acknowledge the Act

The first step to changing your habits for the better is to realize and accept your flawed thinking. In other words, acknowledge that you are over-planning. 

You can do this by taking note of what activities you spend the bulk of your time on. Doing so will allow you to allocate your time more effectively, as you will be able to see what activities to cut down on and which to dedicate more time to. 

It is also a helpful exercise to identify your reasons for over-planning, whether that be fear of failure, resistance to change, or something else.

Filter The Information That Gets In

It’s smart to keep informed about the industry you are getting into – after all, knowledge is a pillar of success. As with all things, however, consuming too much information can be a bad thing. It can overwhelm you and cause you to doubt yourself. Over time, your voice may be drowned out by the many pieces of information you have floating in your head. 

When you find yourself unable to start because you are scared of accidentally deviating from all you have learned, that is your sign to stop researching and start working. Put a limit on the amount of time you can spend planning; then once that window is up, it’s go-time!

Set Deadlines and Launch Dates For Your Projects

Many of our best laid-plans end up stagnating, sitting in the ‘work in progress’ pile for far too long. One way to avoid the slow death of your project is to set a launch date for it. As the launch date approaches, you will find yourself putting the finishing touches on whatever plans you have underway. 

If you are prone to shifting deadlines, you can also enlist the help of accountability measures. For example, if you already have a business and you are in the process of launching a new feature or service, you could set a launch date and announce it to your existing clients. By making things public, you will have no choice but to work towards your goal.

Break Bigger Tasks into Smaller Tasks

Breaking your project into smaller, more actionable tasks will help to encourage you forward. This way, you can have small milestones to check off as you progress toward the launch of your project. Each little victory will help to motivate you and push you onward. Breaking things down will also make the project feel a little less overwhelming. 

Learn to Accept Imperfection

If you have set a public deadline for your project, there’s still no guarantee it will be perfect – even the night before launch. The only way to press on with your project, and any projects to come, is to make peace with imperfection. 

When you challenge yourself to stop planning and start acting, you will find yourself in a much better position to adapt to unexpected situations and changes. Planning is important, but it should never get in the way of executing your ideas. Even as your plan unfolds, there will always be more to do, more changes to make, and more unexpected hiccups to adapt to.

Bottom Line

At the end of the day, it is God we have to depend on. He’s the one in charge – in fact, He is the only one who can predict every challenge and possible outcome. This does not exempt us from being prepared, however; we are still tasked with making decisions and taking action. Knowing that God is in control serves as an element of faith and a source of courage. This we can see in the Bible, in which it tells us that “You can prepare a horse for the day of battle. But the power to win comes from the Lord” – Proverbs 21:31.

The truth is, we will never have all the answers. We should rely on God rather than acting solely on our own wisdom. Even Solomon said so in Proverbs 3:5-6 – “Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make your paths straight.”

Our prayer and hope for you today is that you make the necessary preparations for the business or project you want to get started on, then take the leap of faith and go for it. There’s nothing stopping you from reaching your full potential today – only you stand between yourself and the realization of your goals. Trust in God to be with you as you fulfill each task. You can do it!