What The Funk?

0:00 We are back on what the funk, and today we're going to take it to the banks, Brian. There banks, the land runner himself. Brian, I'm glad we were able to finally get this scheduled. I think I

0:14 had to push you off once, maybe twice. I think I pushed you off twice, and you're trying to push me off, of course. You'd get some sort of illness, and we've rescheduled this for today. So

0:24 thank you for your flexibility. Glad we were able to finally make it, and I'll just jump right into it At other mountain states guy, I'm just to the east of you in Colorado. I use I'd over in Utah,

0:36 and I will pose the question to you, like I pose to every one of my guests. Who are you, Brian Turbex?

0:45 Yeah, I'm a land man, I'm a husband, I'm a father, and recently just became a grandfather. I've been in the land business for all while since 2005 So coming up on 20 years.

1:00 Well, congratulations, less so on 20 years of being a landman. I mean, I guess maybe you deserve congratulations for that, but more so on becoming a newly minted grandfather. That is super

1:12 exciting. And it's the time of year, right? The three Fs, well, the four Fs in our case. Family, food, football, and of course, funks in our case. But Thanksgiving's always my favorite

1:25 holiday. Just people getting together You overeat, you take a nap, you watch your football team probably lose if you're a Cowboys fan ouch. Sorry, you're all my Cowboys fan listeners. But yeah,

1:38 it's an amazing day. It's a glorious time of year. And I think I'm ready for a little bit of a slowdown. This has been a pretty intense year. I feel like from a business perspective, maybe you

1:49 can relate to that a little bit, that there was some election fatigue, I think just for everybody as can happen in the election cycle. And a lot of ups and downs, you know, both personally and

1:60 professionally, not just for me, I feel like this has been a theme with a lot of people. But Ryan, I wanna go back a little bit with you. Where'd you grow up? Where'd you go to school? How did

2:10 you, what did you do before you got into oil and gas? Give me sort of the, the younger version, your story. Yeah, sure.

2:19 To respond to your four S-YAT works for the Fairbanks as well. So that works for me. Here we go Growing up, Central Utah. So take the state of Utah on a map, put an X through it. And right there

2:33 in the middle, that's where I grew up. Emory County, rural

2:39 Utah, small town. We called it a city, but like less than 5, 000 people. It's hard to call that a city. Super rural Utah. Dad was a auto mechanics teacher at the high school So, grew up. with

2:57 some grease and oil under my fingernails, playing with cars and

3:03 just living rural life. So,

3:07 substantially that was my growing up was that kind of a rural environment where you kind of know just about everybody or something about them and everybody knows you and your business and they want to

3:19 be in it. Yeah, you know, very similar to my upbringing, not the dad teaching

3:29 shop or whatever in high school, but I grew up in central New Hampshire. New Hampshire is not a box like Utah. So it's a little bit, I guess if you combine New Hampshire and Vermont, it's more of

3:40 like an upside down rectangle or something. But anyways, I grew up in central New Hampshire. My town, Rummy, was, I don't know, 1500 people, but the big city, the sprawling metropolis nearby

3:51 Plymouth had about 5, 000. So I can relate to sort of knowing everybody's business, other people wanting to be in your business, everybody knowing certainly all of the families and what they're

4:03 all about. And it's nice, like I think that that foundation has been helpful for me. It always sort of gave me the appetite to do something more to branch out, to see the world, to expand my

4:17 horizons both personally and professionally So I sort of knew I was not gonna end up back in New Hampshire. For you, though, you did stay in Utah, but you moved somewhere else in Utah, right?

4:29 How far from where you grew up to you live now? That's about a two and a half, three hour drive there. So the nearby city for us was Price, Utah, which is still a pretty small junior college town

4:49 about a half an hour away.

4:53 Yeah, Plymouth, New Hampshire was a small college town. So I'm seeing some of the similarities that we grew up with. I would think that with your dad being an automotive teacher, you probably

5:06 know a little bit about cars, right? So do you still do your own oil changes and fix your own car and your kids' cars when things go wrong? I know how to, just because I can, doesn't mean I

5:17 should,

5:19 to borrow a title from Mike McConnell's book But no, I do not do my own oil changes. I've learned when I was in college that I could do them. I bought myself a pair of ramps. And for a few years

5:36 when I was in college and that's what the budget dictated, I did my own oil changes. But as soon as I could afford to have somebody else do it, I was like, yeah, I can find a better use for that

5:48 hour or two that it might take me to do it unless somebody else do it in 20 minutes. Yeah, it's something I never learned how to do. And I've actually talked about this on this podcast before, but

5:59 like, you know, for whatever reason, like, you know, automotive shop, it wasn't a class that I took, or really a lot of like, I would say, like the high honors students took, I should have

6:10 taken it. Like there was really a lot of applicable real life stuff there in shop and they would, you know, work on like students trucks and things like that to learn and figure things out So I

6:24 almost wish if I could go back, you know, and give my younger self some advice for that age is don't look down on the traits, right? Like I think that I sort of had this mindset of, now I need to

6:35 take English honors, AP, US history, and there's nothing wrong with that. I think there was a lot of value in those types of classes and it exercised a muscle in my brain that I needed. But I

6:46 also should have taken some of the more sort of blue collar trade types of classes that I think would have been helpful So did you have your dad as a teacher? high school? I never took a class from

6:57 him. I was like, I live with him at home. I spend all summer chasing project cars with him so that he'll have stuff for his students to work on during the school year. I don't need to take his

7:08 class. Now I'm looking back, wished that I had taken a class from him to see him interacting on that level with other students. But I just never did Yeah, no, I get it. I mean, I think my mom

7:25 was an elementary school art teacher. My dad was a psychology professor at the college. And I think because my mom was an art teacher, I sort of like rebelled against art. I took like very few art

7:36 electives and art classes, which is silly. Like, you know, I went to Paris earlier this year and I went to the Louvre. And I'm like, oh, I remember my mom talking about some of this stuff.

7:44 Like, this is cool. Like, I should have leaned into art more. Maybe I even have some skills there that I just never tapped into, but maybe too late now Thank you. So you're doing a different

7:55 form of art and you're doing podcasting and creating something different just because it's not graphic artists, traditional kind

8:05 of art doesn't mean you're not exercising that creative muscle. Well, I appreciate that. And of course, with funk futures too, there's a creative element to that with some of the marketing and

8:15 branding and content stuff that we do. So I thank you. That's, that's a kind thing to say I've always thought of this more as like, you know, my dad would go up there and lecture for hours. So I

8:25 thought that maybe a lot of this was like some of the skills that he passed out to be able to talk and listen and articulate like complex concepts and try to distill them down to make them digestible.

8:37 But anyways, yeah, I guess I'm an artist. I'll start putting that on my LinkedIn title, Jeremy Funk artist.

8:44 But for you, Ryan, are you watching this new show Landman? I haven't watched the first episode or two yet. Um, I know a little bit about it and I've been involved in being aware of it and what's

9:03 going on with it and kind of some of the response to it. So, uh, I am going to be reviewing one of the episodes coming up in the future. Yeah. I haven't watched it yet either. I probably will

9:18 just because it hits like relatively close to home, having been an oil and gas for so long It sounds like there's some liberties being taken. And it's more like just an oil and gas show versus a

9:29 land man show, right? But, but nonetheless, I got to ask you, right? Like, I'm not a land man. How do you get into the profession of being a land man? And what does a land man do?

9:44 Yeah, really kind of two basic paths that people come into being a land man. So one is the way I came in, which is just coming up through the trenches, like you network and you meet somebody and

9:57 they've got a project. And there's this phase of land work that there's a period of it when it kind of is,

10:09 can you fog a mirror? Okay, we'll use you. And that's not when I came in. It wasn't one of those phases

10:19 But we did bring on a lot of people that had no background in oil and gas. The other way that people come into the land business is more the formal education route where they go to maybe an AAPL

10:32 accredited school or they go to a land management or energy management type school and get a bachelor's degree. And then they do an internship with an oil and gas company. And most likely those

10:45 people who go more of the formal route end up getting the in-house jobs where you work for a chevron or an oventive or an oxy, a big, one of the major oil and gas companies as an in-house engineer

11:00 or geologist or landman.

11:04 Yeah. So a couple of different paths there, right? And I, and I feel like a lot of, uh, lawyers end up landmen or heading up land departments as well. My friend, Steven Hatcher, the minerals

11:16 guy, his background was through, um, you know, going through law school, passing the bar, and then eventually becoming a landman. I think there's a lot of complimentary skills. Um, certainly

11:27 you have to read a lot of contracts, right? You have to know how to analyze documents and be able to sift through. In some cases, hundreds of years of, of data and details to be able to get the

11:38 real answer, uh, on, uh, on what's happening on the land. And then I think there's also, like you said, like a little bit more of a technical component, 'cause I think GIS. and mapping has

11:49 been tied into land as well. And I think of that as a little more of like a technical, almost engineering centric type of role or IT, I think in other cases. So where do you fit in those couple of

12:02 buckets that you mentioned?

12:05 Yeah, definitely an analytical component to doing land work where I find I thrive the most is in negotiating So negotiating oil and gas leases, I had a mentor that took me through a course of about

12:24 two or three years of each of several disciplines. So I started off doing negotiating. That's where I came in, I had some sales experience and he brought me in and said, I think you can handle

12:36 doing leasing. And I said, Okay, tell me about that, describe it And the more he described it, to me, to put it in a nutshell,

12:48 reverse sales. Instead of calling people and asking them to buy something, they have an asset that's being underutilized,

12:57 oil and gas interest, that we'd like to lease. So you call and offer them money.

13:05 Sounds like a pretty tough sell. I think I can handle that.

13:10 So I spent a few years leasing. As a natural element of that, I learned how to do title because you call people and, oh, mom or dad passed away and now we're trying to figure out how to move it to

13:24 the next generation. And so you end up getting involved in the attorney-type elements where you're dealing with contracts and airship and estates and how do you cure that title so that it gets to the

13:39 next generation and the oil and gas company actually will pay them instead of it sitting in suspense and the world is just accumulating, but nobody has access to them.

13:51 So, title, and then I got into doing right away and surface use agreements and the title for that and managing a surface team, which included title researchers and negotiators.

14:04 Very cool. Yeah, I like how you broke that all down. It's digestible, I think, is the way to put it.

14:11 Simplifying a process that can be complex, because I've been told running title or chain of title is actually not very straightforward or simple. Like you mentioned, great, great, grandpa Joe has

14:26 this farm in rural Utah, and oil and gas wells have been drilled on it. And then at some point, great, great, grandpa Joe passes away. And nobody's actually getting the money at that point from

14:41 the oil and gas company that's being created from the production held on that lease. So when somebody eventually does say, hey, this is my land or you guys run title, you do your analysis and say,

14:54 hey, family, this is your title, what happens to all of the royalty money that had been accumulated over the years?

15:02 Yeah, in order to clear that being in suspense is what it's called in the industry. You know, we don't know who the heirs are, they haven't signed a contract. It hasn't affected, we've been

15:15 moved to the new heirs, then the oil companies, because they don't have a clear direction of who to pay that to, they just hold it in a reserve account, a suspense account. It does have to be

15:27 paid out to the rightful owners, but there's a period where you need to figure out who those rightful owners are. So once that gets figured out, in some cases, I had a really interesting one,

15:41 when I was doing some leasing in Colorado, actually,

15:46 I got handed this family. that we knew it had been like Great Great Grandpa Joe. It was four generations of, they never did any formal estate planning because it was a big ranch and they all, it

16:02 was just like poor rural ranching family. Why should we pay an attorney to do any estate planning? 'Cause we're just poor ranchers. Sure. But thousands of acres of property and mineral rights with

16:18 it. And you go down three or four generations and it turned into, I think it was 63 heirs. Wow. And I spent a year and a half chasing down and leasing and doing the curative legal side of things

16:39 to make sure we had everything in place and all of the heirs agreed

16:45 that each other were the heirs of. these multiple estates and how it got divided up to everybody.

16:55 Have you? That's awesome. I mean, it's a lot of work, I'm sure. But you're basically saying, hey, you might have some money owed to you. Can you respond back to me? Right? And they're like,

17:06 well, first of all, who are you? Second of all, is this a scam? Right? And then you're like, no, actually, there's money that's been sitting in an account that is rightfully legally yours.

17:21 Do you want it? Right? And then all of a sudden, I could see some of the infighting that happens as well. Grandpa Joe actually left me this and that, right? And

17:30 boy, that's a lot. That's really fascinating stuff. Have you seen some suspense accounts or like money, you know, royalties distributed that were substantial in your career?

17:43 Not a ton. Most of the. Reasing and the curative and generational transfer that I've been involved with has been more on the pre-production side of stuff So there isn't a suspense account created

17:59 yet in most of what I've dealt with I have in the recent couple of years gotten more into mineral management and finding mineral rights that There is a suspense account and it's been recent, you know

18:14 in the last Three to five years a parent has passed away and so is sitting in suspense So not a ton of time has accumulated or royalties in order to distribute that but yes, there there have been

18:29 some suspense accounts that I've dealt with and It can be substantial for sure and especially if the number of heirs is not vast You know if you don't have a big family who are all also having big

18:42 families to divide it up to

18:46 what mom or dad had in their estate divided by three or four errors can still be quite substantial.

18:56 Got it. So when an oil and gas company, I mean, oil and gas is highly inquisitive, right? Companies buy companies all the time. Yes. We're seeing that right now. I mean, it's one of those

19:06 seasons. It is acquisition and divestiture time. And I mean, like right here where I am in the unibason, we've got two operators that are right in the middle of transition. Yeah. I mean, SM

19:20 here in Denver made a huge play out there. And I'm hearing from, you know, my friends who work in the field and go out to the UNTibason that it's very promising. Some people have even said it's

19:30 the next Permian. I don't know if that's necessarily the case, but they're seeing some pretty incredible initial production rates and nice clean crude coming out of the UNTibason. So I would guess

19:41 it's going to stay busy out there

19:44 Yeah, yep. That's what we're seeing, and especially if the railroad goes through, that'll open up transportation, getting product out of the basin, a lot easier. Yeah, take a quick pass.

19:58 These is a big deal. So when an oil and gas company gets acquired, I'm assuming they're also then acquiring. The suspense, right? Yeah. Oh,

20:10 they're also acquiring the suspense, right? Yeah, they are.

20:15 Yeah And that can make it even harder, I think, to chase down the money. Um, you're just dealing with more and more people and more and more hands and different banks and various other things.

20:25 That's fascinating stuff. Um, let's transition a little bit. I wanted to talk to you about land runner. So, so what do you do? What does your business do? Uh, how do you help people talk about

20:35 the podcast a little bit, uh, later, but jump into land runner? Like who are you guys? Yeah, two elements to really, there's the land services side.

20:47 energy production, leasing contracts, title work, all of those elements of being a land man and the land services brokerage where we have other independent contractors that we can subcontract out

21:03 to take care of that work. And then the other side of that is the coaching and professional development. So that's helping independent land men learn land skills that help them serve clients. So

21:19 negotiating, tie to work, leadership, networking, communication, kinds of things.

21:28 How long have you guys been around?

21:31 Well, I started doing land work. I've always been an independent contractor in 2005. So

21:39 since then, and then officially, So I had a different entity that we did business under. for a while and then official land runner was launched in

21:55 2015. Nice.

21:58 And talk to me a little bit about the podcast. When did you decide to start the podcast? What's it called? What's the focus of it? I'm assuming I can guess that it's land focused, but tell me a

22:07 little bit about the podcast. Yeah.

22:12 Started in 2020

22:16 The year when people start

22:20 things, right?

22:22 Using their minds.

22:25 Started working on it in 2019. And really the focus was, how can I serve other land professionals like myself beyond my immediate crew? 'Cause I was managing, I had a couple of title agents that

22:42 were running Surface Title And seven.

22:51 land agents that were acquiring right away in surface use agreements. So managing that crew of about 10 people and reflecting on how can I serve a broader audience? Who else can I help in some way?

23:02 I've been in the business a little while. You know, I don't know everything. Nobody knows everything 'cause you just can't. The volume of things that can be known in this industry is just so vast

23:14 But is there

23:17 something that I could add that would serve other people? And is there a way I can serve beyond my immediate crew that I interact with on a day-to-day basis? And so that's where the podcast was born

23:29 out of us. How can I connect people with other professionals in the industry to help them develop these skills?

23:39 Very cool. It's noble, a little bit different from why I started my podcast. You know, I'm a sales guy and with COVID, I couldn't get in front of people anymore, right? So then how do I still

23:52 kind of create, cultivate a brand and have people know like where I work and what I do, what my team does, without talking to people face to face because as you know, this is a very, you know,

24:05 conference centric face to face, kind of old school handshake industry. Right. And then I think during COVID, we did see a bit of a transition or an addition, I should say with sort of the

24:17 digital content and media becoming more of a

24:22 real viable way to create business and brand. And I think it's been a positive for me. I'm sure it's been a positive for you, but I think your cause is a good one. It's a noble one, so I commend

24:35 you for that. I want to shift a little bit to another topic that I think is kind of interesting that you and I had talked about on our session

24:46 And that is alcohol. So you don't drink and I don't drink. But you're like a pretty social guy and so am I. And we go to all of these events, right? I'm curious like what advice you'd have for

24:58 people that may be uncomfortable in a social situation and like to lube themselves up with some alcohol to talk to people. You've obviously built a fine career without having any alcohol. I decided

25:10 to give it up a couple of years ago. But how does that work, right? I think a lot of people have even asked me that of like, how do you go to these events and not drink? So I want to turn that

25:19 back around on you, Ryan. Like, what would you suggest to other people that don't drink in these very social settings in a very booze-heavy industry, for lack of a better way to put it? Yeah.

25:35 Going back to the first kind of conference like that that I went to

25:43 before I got into land, actually. And there was a happy hour event. We were in Louisville, Kentucky at the Louisville Slugger Museum. Nice. And so,

25:59 sports, I mean, I see behind you the baseball shots and. Yeah.

26:06 But yeah, happy hour at the Slugger Museum and guys going to the bar and

26:14 just me hanging back, and going, okay, so the first time I was ever at one of these, right, nobody had really given me any kind of pointers as to how do I handle that, what do I say, but I'd

26:29 grown up with a lifetime of not drinking, so I don't drink. Can I get a Sprite? How about a chocolate milk?

26:39 What else is available? How about a screwdriver without the screw?

26:48 So, I've learned how to have a little fun with it, too.

26:54 Recently, just this last week, I was over in Denver at the Denver Land Institute, and they had book ending the event, happy hour the night before, Rocky's bash the night after,

27:10 and I was

27:13 pleased to find out about some of the other people in the room who, like you, have chosen to give it up, and just saying, you know, I don't drink that garbage anymore, or I'm hearing them say,

27:27 you know, for my health, for my mind, I decided this wasn't good for me. It got me in places that I didn't want to be in, so I decided to make a change, and one guy said, You know, I'm down

27:41 like 30, 35 pounds, and

27:46 healthier and happier than I've ever been.

27:49 I think that there's been a bit of a shift where with alcohol, it used to be kind of weird if you were at an event like that and people, why are you not drinking, right? Like there's something

28:01 wrong with you versus now. I think that it's really, uh, people really commend you. I think there's just more information now about some of the detriments of alcohol and some people, many people

28:13 that I know have either given it up or reduced it, um, quite substantially. But it's kind of one of those things where when it's around you and it's totally normalized, like I like watching

28:25 football. Obviously I'm a sports guy. Um, you notice it, right? You notice how many beer commercials and how many ads and how many banners for Budweiser and Budlight and, you know, here we are.

28:35 Coors like owns Colorado, right? It's everywhere and it's, it's everything And I think that it just has become so normalized, at least in this country, that we forget. But there are some real

28:47 detriments to it health-wise, among others. So kudos to you, keep that going. That's good stuff. So I'm curious as well, some of the conferences that you go to, like I think NAEP has

29:02 historically been like the biggest land show of the year. You mentioned AAPL. What are some of the conferences that you go to to get business to interact with other land people and further your

29:13 knowledge and skills in the discipline? Yeah, the AAPL annual meeting has been the one that I've been most involved with, had the opportunity a couple years ago to be on the education committee,

29:28 which was primarily tasked with education for that annual meeting. So a great opportunity to interact with the speakers that were involved and going to be coming to those meetings

29:43 So that's the primary one that I've been involved with. And then as of late, getting more involved and familiar with the local association. So the Denver APL group that just did the Denver Land

29:56 Institute,

29:59 Montana has a good group. The Montana APL group does a - just started, again, doing a fall seminar So an education event paired with a golfing event and charity fundraiser. And many of the local

30:19 associations are very involved in that kind of thing, doing charity fundraisers and some kind of informal networking via golf, clay pigeon shooting, Denver in the spring, like at the end of ski

30:33 season does a ski day,

30:37 fly fishing adventures, a variety of things But they're all geared around, how can we get together? and do something that benefits other people doing, education events and charity fundraisers.

30:54 Yeah, I like the land folks, right? I've sort of worked all across the disciplines on the business side, on the sales side, with finance accounting, operations, engineering, GEOs, as well as

31:08 sort of the land and AD out sort of grouped together a little bit. And the AAPL annual conference, I've been now a couple of times. Both times we're in Boston, which for me is awesome. My whole

31:18 family's still back in the Northeast. Boston's kind of where my heart is. And this year was in Boston. So it was super fun to get back there. I think it was really hot, weather, the weather was

31:33 hot, which like I think a lot of the people that are going are from Texas or Oklahoma and they're like, we're coming here to get away from the heat. What's going on?

31:44 But really festive, really fun, just like a kind, open group of people. I've really enjoyed like my interactions with land folks and particularly shout out to AAPL. I think they run a tremendous

31:56 annual conference and they always pick fun locations. Like they, and embrace whatever's happening locally as well. Right? Like we didn't just stay in the hotel the whole time at the conference.

32:06 We were out and about and doing lots of things and there's optional tours and you know, got to see some of Boston that I haven't seen since like I was a kid doing the same thing. So that was, that

32:17 was a blast for me. Do you go to NAEP? Is that one of your kind of anchor shows as well? I have not been to NAEP yet. I'm really seriously considering it for this coming.

32:31 NAEP, yeah, looking at that. I would recommend it. I mean, it's one of those shows I've been probably 15 times, right? And, you know, sometimes have a booth, sometimes not, it's fun. When

32:44 the oil industry is good, there's really a great vibe when it's not it's a bit of a different vibe, right? Don't quite say it's a morgue, but it's it's closer to a morgue than a party

32:55 Drowning your sorrows instead of celebrating your successes right some years, but you know It's it's really a great show and I would highly recommend for you in terms of what you do going to to that

33:06 so You know, I'm a businessman you're a businessman I'm curious how do you get your business like is a pod the podcast a driver for business? Do you just have like a name now in the the segment or

33:18 niche of the market that you plan? How do you get business?

33:24 Yeah, I wouldn't say the podcast is there yet as far as really being a driver for business before I started doing it I interacted with several people who had podcast and they gave me some wise advice

33:39 that has helped me be patient with the development of it and that was you got to play the long game. This is not a do it for three months or six months and think that you're going to start just

33:53 seeing the return pour in. Now some people managed to do that because of the nature of the podcast or show but by and large they're the exception more than the rule. Like it's a long game and it's

34:10 building relationships and that comes back to the conferences too and how I get business is it's building relationships with people.

34:19 And so over time you know there's a manager for a local oil and gas company that operates here in the UNA. basin that I've known for 15 years. I first met him just we ran into each other in a local

34:38 recorder's office.

34:40 but we've bumped into each other at industry conferences. We see each other in the recorder's offices.

34:48 We have neighboring, if not overlapping plays, and so sometimes maybe there's some interaction there.

34:56 But building a reputation of being a professional, being engaged in the work, still being engaged in the work, and somebody who can pull together a project, manage a project,

35:14 that's the reputation that I'm working to build, is that we can be helpful to these projects, getting what they need, which is the contracts and the relationships with the landowners so that they

35:26 can do energy development. And so I've had some business that's come that way As of

35:36 late, but it's it's relationship a lot of it around conferences and people that you meet, have interaction with, figure out how to interact more than just waiting another year 'til the next

35:49 conference, but staying in touch with people. And usually that is more, it needs to be an intentional thing like, who's gonna take the initiative? And it's not just staying in touch because I'm

36:06 trying to get business from them, but build their relationship. 'Cause people consume through the facade of, I just am trying to get business from you. Yep, yeah, a couple things that I wanna

36:20 sift through 'cause you said some, you made some salient points. I like to refer to sales and let's admit it, as a consultant, you're always in sales, right? You're trying to sell and get your

36:32 next contract at your future business, whether it's immediate or long-term.

36:38 at sales as a bank, right? You've got to make deposits constantly. And if you're just always going to people with something to sell to them, then you're just looking for withdrawals every time you

36:52 go to the bank. And then I don't need to explain to you what happens if you make too many withdrawals from your bank without making enough deposits. Right. So the deposits, the value added things

37:01 that you can do reaching out to people to see how they're doing in an authentic way, as opposed to trying to pitch something, sell something every single time, is the long game, right? And that's

37:12 sort of the way that I've approached business and life, I think, to a large extent. The other thing is on podcasting. I think there's a reason why most podcasts shut down at like 10 episodes.

37:28 It's because I'm gonna start this podcast and everybody's gonna see me. I'm gonna get all this business and then what happens? It doesn't

37:35 So I think this is like my 171st episode. of this. So of course, now it is a bit of like a top of funnel driver and it helps if you have your own business. But, you know, it's hard to get

37:47 through those first initial episodes because you're not good at it. Like no one's just like a natural podcaster, right? I mean, I think that some people are more cut out for it than others. But

37:58 I've even listened to some of my early episodes. I'm like, oh, this is so scripted. I really, I sent you the prep questions to this. I go through the questions. And back then, I can hear

38:07 myself, right? And Tim, you know, rest in peace, my former podcast cohost. And it's like, we were clearly reading off of a piece of paper and asking the questions, right? And what happens

38:18 when you do that is you don't listen, and it sounds scripted, and it's just never as good of a product. But eventually you get comfortable. And now I actually really look forward to this, because

38:27 this is, you know, we're at about 40 minutes, like, you know, I haven't checked my phone once, I haven't checked my email, there's been no distractions, a good conversation with a good person

38:39 is rare these days, frankly, without checking my phone or, you know, wondering who's at my front door? Is that the Amazon guy? Like, you know, actually locked in and focused and having

38:50 conversation. So a couple more hot seat questions I'm going to put you on and then I'll let you go and enjoy your rest of your Friday before

38:58 the weekend, which leads into a light week next week and Thanksgiving, just again, a great time of year. What advice would you give to your younger self? If you could sit down and talk to the 18

39:08 year old, 21, 25 year old Ryan Fairbanks, what would you tell

39:14 them? Yeah, the big thing I think there is just be patient with the relationship building. Like for me looking back and especially as you've talked some about kind of the sales process and the

39:33 banking build make deposits. at value is looking back, just like you looked back on your earlier episodes, looking back on conversations that I've had with people, I recognize ways that I've been

39:50 so excited about how I can help somebody or the service that we can provide that

39:57 I am impatient with developing their relationship. So, that's one thing I would say to my earlier self is be patient with that. Development is, it's growth, it's a process and it takes time and

40:14 you don't grow,

40:17 you know, particular to some fruit trees especially, you don't plan to harvest the next day.

40:26 In some cases, it takes years or decades before it's to a productive state. And so, that's a big part of it.

40:38 The skills that we develop as a land professional, I would say to independent contractor land man, especially.

40:47 You're not going to come out of the gate and just go negotiate a beautiful oil and gas lease that everybody loves the first time you do it. But I want to do that. I want to play at the tree and have

40:58 it have it bare fruit overnight. Come on it. Yeah, it takes practice. It takes time. I had

41:06 a cousin recommend a book to me and I don't even remember the title of it right now. But one of the real key points that I got from this book was the value of career capital. When you've spent a

41:22 decade or two or three developing skills area and people can look at that and go, I just take so long.

41:36 I don't want to do that, but the things that we can do when we've been in an industry for a couple decades,

41:43 that we've learned how to do almost instinctively, you know, it's not a strict process, it's not a script that you formally have to look at and read line-by-line or every word to get it right,

41:59 because we've done it so many times that it's a practice, it's a way of being that we've learned over our career.

42:11 It's a great answer, patience, listening, again patience are very, very important skills and investing in your own career capital. I've been really fortunate that I have a friend who is a

42:27 professor, he's actually a professor of sales at a university called Bentley just outside of Boston, was actually right down the street from Brandeis Rowan School. And he's an awesome professor.

42:38 He's a career sales guy. I think he's in the pharma biotech space. And what he likes to do is have successful sales people, people that have had a long running career in sales. Come on and talk to

42:53 his class and let them ask questions. I love it because it's 20, 21, 22 year olds that are just about to embark on their career. They're passionate, they're smart, they're hardworking And they

43:04 really want that overnight success, right? And I think one of the things that I really preached to with them is like, yeah, they're like, so, you know, when you started your own business, like

43:13 what were the toughest? And I'm like, well, just doing it. Like the idea for me of starting my own business, I don't think I had the confidence to be able to do it. Even if other people would

43:23 have told me, yeah, you have all the skills in the background, experience, and wherewithal to do it. But actually just doing it was hard. I would also tell you, Mr. 20 year old, like you

43:32 don't really know anything yet, right? Like you're going to fail. And that's okay, right? It's how you bounce back and respond to that failure and always echoing like, you know, what are some

43:42 of the keys to being a good salesman? I was like, forget everything that you've seen on TV, right? It's the best sales people are the best listeners, right? And people that understand when

43:56 business is not going to happen and allow that to be okay in a board and find more qualified, better opportunities So it's almost counterintuitive in some ways, 'cause you think the best sales

44:08 people should be wearing three-piece suits and slick talkers, that's just not how it is. Okay, another hot seat question, Mr. Fairbanks. What is Utah like known for food-wise? And with that,

44:20 like, what's your favorite restaurant, Utah?

44:25 Food-wise Um.

44:32 As far as like restaurants and that kind of stuff Man, I don't know like it's not, you know, it Texas. It's barbecue, right? Yeah, and I say Colorado It's like green chili, I guess and maybe

44:46 that's a New Mexico thing, but there's green chili everywhere. What does Utah have? What do you what's your thing there?

44:53 Well for Unusual

44:59 Green jello with shredded carrots is a is one that a lot of people haven't heard of and and Probably never tried I haven't had any and probably 30 years since I was you know a kid at home but maybe

45:16 more more mainstream is like funeral potatoes, so this is a casserole dish with Potatoes and cheese and like you can make a whole big casserole dish and feed your whole family on it. But it's,

45:35 they're called funeral potatoes 'cause people make 'em and bring 'em to funerals 'cause there's gonna be a crowd of people that need. Need to be fed? To be fed. All right, okay, so when you go to

45:45 Utah, that's the, you answered the question perfectly. Green Jello with sliced carrots, okay. Not sliced, shredded, shredded carrots. Shredded, okay, I'm trying to wrap my head around this.

45:57 I'm gonna Google this after the podcast ends and funeral potato sounds like - If you go eat it, you won't take

46:04 me later, trust me. It's just different, that's all. Funeral potatoes actually sounds like a good Thanksgiving side, but that's - It is, yeah, it is. I'm gonna have to look into that. Ryan,

46:15 where can people find you, like, you know, LinkedIn, website, things like that, if anybody wants to reach out to you? Yeah, LinkedIn's the best place to connect. That's where I'm most active.

46:25 I looked back the other day and I started building my LinkedIn network in 2013. So, I mean, I wasn't on right at the beginning, but I've been on LinkedIn for a while and so that's the best place

46:36 to connect. I

46:40 have a group on their land skills network. We've been building a paid community where people can come and develop their land skills. So that's that coaching side of the land runner business. But

46:54 yeah, LinkedIn is the best place to connect

46:58 Fantastic. Ryan, it's been really nice to have you on today. It's been good to get to know you appreciate you reaching out going back and forth and having the patience, again, as a theme, to

47:08 bear with me on a couple cancellations and finally come on. So Ryan Fairbanks, thanks for coming on What The Thunk. Thanks, Sherry.