From House Hacking to Million-Dollar Portfolios with Adrienne Green Episode- 51

After a few months, I realized this is the easiest money that I make. You know, at that point in my life, I had, um, I have a background in business and finance. I had switched to teaching high school math, love teaching. And yet at that point, I was looking to start my own family and I really wanted the freedom, uh, you know, my time and location freedom and not having to feel like I was obligated to go to the school and teach every day, anticipating that when I had a little baby, I didn't want to do that.

Welcome to Streams to Impact, and be inspired to engage passionately in the work of your calling while achieving financial prosperity through multiple streams of high-yield returns on investment to bring your dream of making a meaningful impact to reality. I'm your host, Dr. Allen, and I am delighted that you are joining us today. If you haven't yet, get a complimentary copy of our exclusive guide, High Yield Investment Blueprint. Secure 18%+ returns in 60 days. Go to our website, highyieldblueprint.com. That is www.highyieldblueprint.com. Just provide your email address and we'll send you a copy today. Welcome to Streams to Impact, where we uncover the secrets of building streams of success and living lives of meaning and purpose. I'm your host, Dr. Allen, and today I am thrilled to introduce a powerhouse in the world of real estate investing and business systems optimization. Let's meet Adrian Green, a seasoned real estate investor, systems expert, and founder of WorkerGenX. She's built a multi-million dollar portfolio, mastered the art of leveraging virtual assistants, and is on a mission to help investors like you achieve true financial freedom. From proven systems and SOPs to game-changing KPIs, Adrienne knows how to run portfolios like successful businesses, and she's here to share her expertise with us today. So whether you're looking to scale your investments, delegate like a pro, or optimize your operations, You're in the right place. Let's dive into today's conversation with Adrian and learn how to take our portfolios to the next level. So, Adrian, your journey, much like ECWA's, has been one of transcending boundaries and inspiring others through your work. Can you share with us the moment or experience that first sparked your passion and set you on the path to creating streams of impact in your life?

I would love to share that, Dr. Allen. And that's such a great question to really get to, to the meat of it. And for me, that memory is with my very first foray into real estate investing, which was actually renting out my basement or house hacking. And, you know, it really was a whim. I wasn't raised in a family that did real estate investing. I hadn't done a ton of research. I don't even know if BiggerPockets existed then, but if it did, it was not like an is now. And it really was just that my husband and I had bought the house that we thought was our forever house that had much more space than it needed. And a company that he was working for, a few of his coworkers had kept their old primary residences and rented them out. So we— that was the only way we knew people who were like landlords, right? Or did real estate investing. And so we had this big house, we really weren't using the basement. And so I was like, hey, let's give this a try. It's pretty low risk, right? In the sense of we're only committing to a year. If we don't like it, we don't have to do it again, right? It's not like we're buying a property. We already have this house. So let's just fix it up, make it work as a rental on its own, list it on what— Craigslist was the place to list it back then, right, for rentals— and see what happens, right? We don't even have to say yes unless we find people that we really like. And we did it. We rented to this Nice little family, husband, wife, little girl. And after a few months, I realized this is the easiest money that I make. You know, at that point in my life, I had— I have a background in business and finance. I had switched to teaching high school math, love teaching. And yet at that point, I was looking to start my own family, and I really wanted the freedom, uh, you know, my time and location freedom, and not having to feel like I was obligated to go to the school and teach every day, anticipating that when I had a little baby, I didn't want to do that, right? And so So when we were able to rent out this basement, and it was $1,000 a month, which was good money, but it's not, you know, it's $1,000 a month, right? I was making more than that. And yet it was my first little taste of, wow, this is what passive income looks like, right? This is what, you know, using what you have and allowing it to work and make money for you. So it's not your hours being traded for dollars. That really opened my eyes. And from there on out, it was just a journey of real estate investing.

Yeah, well, that's, uh, that is certainly a good way to begin, and that is where essentially I began my journey of real estate investing too, is through house hacking a house that I owned and, and lived in myself. So, so tell us about from that journey to where it is that you actually began to actually develop that as a business, and what were, what were some of the, uh, the pleasures of that and some of the struggles that you had to go through from taking it to, uh, an incidental, uh, kind of investment to an actual business?

Right. So it was an evolution, and it wasn't something that happened overnight. So from there The next step that I took in my investing journey is my husband and I would save the money for a down payment on a property. And there was a lot of analysis because we lived in Northern Virginia outside of D.C., which, you know, we weren't in a place to just buy for appreciation. Right. We wanted this place to sustain itself. And yet that's really more of an appreciation than a cash flow market. And I didn't have my eyes open to things like long-distance real estate investing or passive real estate investing or any of these other things. I, I just didn't know. Right. I didn't know any better. And so I was in this market that was kind of going to be an uphill battle for what we needed. And so it took a lot of analysis to find this one little niche of condos, older condos in the town near where I lived had relatively low condo fees. And there would be 2 or 3-bedroom units that would rent for pretty good market value because they had 2 or 3 bedrooms. And so the numbers worked like as condos, they cost a little less and yet their rent really wasn't that much less than a townhouse or a single-family home. Because people care about bedrooms, right? And so that was the next step. And I did those condos, then I kind of fell into long-distance and short-term rental investing, because I had a pre-approval in hand, lost a multiple offer situation on one of those condos. And I happened to be on vacation in Myrtle Beach at the time. So it's like, what every real estate investor does, let's see what properties cost here. And they were a lot less expensive than I was expecting for, you know, beach Beach area real estate. I was like, well, then they can't make that much money as rentals. Look that up. Oh no, they made more than I was expecting. And I was like, wow, the numbers here look great. So I fell into long-distance short-term rental investing from that. And it was really after that when I had to shape up and start running this as a business because short-term rentals are a lot more intensive in terms of the management that they need, right? They you need to have your systems on lockdown more in order to really. minimize your time and maximize your money. And also at that time, when we bought that third house, I was pregnant with our third child. And so I was coming into a season of being very busy with a newborn, a 2-year-old, and a 4-year-old. So time was of the essence and I had to be smart. So that was really what led to the evolution of like, hey, I can't just, uh, handle these as casually as I have been. I need to start getting systems. I need to start tracking my numbers. I need to start running this like a business so that I get the most out of my time, money, and effort that I'm putting in here.

What were the challenges to— I mean, once you realized you had to start doing that as a business, for essentially your time was becoming more and more valuable, and so you had to to put systems into place that were going to allow you to keep it profitable and at the same time give you back your time. So what were, what were the major challenges there?

Well, Dr. Allen, I think the first challenges was really the mindset aspect, right? The first challenge was really realizing, because we, you know, we have so many biases to what we've been doing already and to thinking that what we're doing is the best thing, is to realizing, hey, What got me here isn't going to get me there. And it's okay to acknowledge that. And it's okay to acknowledge that I need to change how I'm doing things in order to continue to grow. So that, I think, was that first challenge. And in another aspect of the mindset was because a lot of my growth has come through leveraging systems, technology, and also through leveraging virtual assistants. So another big mindset thing was realizing that— couple things with that. First, that I'm not always the best person to do something, that someone else can do something better than I do it. That was a big mental realization. And that, you know, the second aspect was like, it's okay to have help. It's okay to have someone else do it. You know, in the United States, our American mentality is so like, I hustle, I grind, I work harder than someone else. And, you know, realizing like, It's okay to have a virtual assistant doing that while I'm enjoying time with my family, right? It's okay to have them be the one on call answering those guest messages. I don't have to be working during that time. I can just be enjoying the life that I've created. So the mindset challenge was the first one, I think. And then the next one is once you're okay with this, well, how do I do it, right? How do I do all this, right? Like, how do I create these systems? What is the technology I'm supposed to use? How do I, how do I work with a virtual assistant? And so for me, what helped me with those tech, those challenges is, you know, I ended up working as a real estate agent as part of my investing journey. And one of our phrases in the agent world is R&D means rip off and duplicate, right? And it's said in a very collegial, non-theft way of, you know, seeing what someone else is doing and figuring it out. And then just copying it, right? Rather than having to reinvent the wheel. And so that was a big thing that I did is I was like, where can I find people who are already experts in this and, and learn what they're doing and use them as a resource? That was, you know, joining a mastermind, getting a coach, and even just things like Facebook groups, right? And posting it out there and seeing what people have brought in. So that was, I think, solving that next challenge. And part of that was realizing It doesn't have to be perfect the first time, right? Like, I want to find ideally the best, let's say for example, like short-term rental management system, and yet any of them are going to make my life better than not using any at all. So I had to have that balance of I want to make a smart choice and yet I can't be stuck in analysis paralysis. So those are some of the challenges and lessons learned along the way.

Yeah, that our mindset is so good at keeping us in our comfort zones, and it is always a challenge to shift that mindset to— in order to go to the next level. And we always have to, and it's an evolutionary process. It just goes on throughout the course of our life. We always have to— If we're going to change anything, we're going to have to have a mindset first of all there.

Mm-hmm.

And then of course, it's— you see a new way out there, but then that big question of how, how do I get there? And your suggestions, you know, getting out there on Facebook groups, starting conversations with people who are already doing them, joining masterminds that are— are full of other people who have already done this and just find out what they're doing and duplicating. Good suggestions there. So all of that is good. That really— that brings you to that place of implementation. So tell us about implementation.

So implementation. Was at points, you know, two steps forward, one step back, right? You know, I've spoken about a few different things here, like having systems, having technology, and having virtual assistants. And I think with all of them, it's two steps forwards, one step back, right? It's like, oh my goodness, I love technology! And then, oh my gosh, this thing isn't working. I can't figure it out, or it's down in a critical time. I'm gonna go be a Luddite and never touch technology again, right? And That was my roller coaster of feelings along the way. And yet, you know, I think one of the key things is, is zooming out and looking back in hindsight when you're not just in, you know, the valley after your last, you know, the last mountain you summited, when you look back and zoom out and seeing that overall it was an upward trajectory. That is, I think, big picture as I looked at these. But then, you know, to dive in on a more granular level, you know, when I first brought on a virtual assistant, I I didn't have like it wasn't like I have a system or a world. I was a solopreneur effectively, and I was like, "I don't I don't have a business with SOPs and a job outline and role description and all of that in place." And what was great that I know now that I didn't know then is that the virtual assistant can create that. So I really just started with an Excel like checklist. Like it was just a table of here are the steps in this one process. And then what I did is every time I did a step in the process that could be done on the phone or on the computer, I just recorded myself doing it. I actually— I mean, you could use Loom. I used— I had a great Zoom account and I used the Zoom personal meeting room and I just shared my screen and narrated. And I said, first I click here, then I click here, then this is what I input, or this is what I do, and just accumulated things that— and then the video went to the virtual assistant and they wrote it up. Nowadays with AI, it's even faster to take a video and make it into a procedure or a guide because you can use an AI transcription tool that will transcribe all the words. And then you could use, you know, an AI tool like ChatGPT to go ahead and create a draft of that procedure. So, and again, the virtual assistant can do all of this for you. So I think one of the challenges was realizing or facing that I'd never done this before and I didn't have a system to plug and play and I needed to build everything From the ground up. That was the challenge. And what was so great is the virtual assistant is right there building with you. So you are only doing that 20% of the building that you need to do, right? You're transferring your knowledge and your brain to a medium or platform where they can get it and run with it. And once you do that, the rest is on them. And so that worked. Now, that being said, virtual assistants, like hiring at all, Anytime you're growing through other people, it means that you're going to have to grow as a leader and a manager. So there's adding in that aspect of personal development, leadership development that needs to happen. There's also the fact that, you know, you're trusting other people and you're not going to have 100% success rate, right? Nobody keeps everyone that they've ever hired, right? Because sometimes it's a win-win and sometimes it's not, right? You grow apart or needs change or things like that. So realizing that and making sure that as a procedure, let's say a system, a process is handed over, that it's written up into what I would call like an SOP, right? Written up in an actual procedure. I use Google Drive to hold all of those. For somebody looking for the tech tool, making sure it's written up so if that virtual assistant wins the lottery or has family trouble or needs to do something else, You're not left high and dry starting again from ground, from scratch. You know, that's it. Because realizing that it's probably going to happen, your virtual assistant is probably not going to stay with you forever. You'll be lucky if, especially if you're hiring direct, you're going to be lucky if they give you any notice rather than just ghosting you. And so you want to use this system and do it in a way where you're going to be able to continue to build. So those were some of the challenges that I faced and some of the specific lessons learned along the way.

Yeah, it has been— it's been— I've had some great experience with virtual assistants. And, you know, you go through that screening process and that interview process and you think you've got a real good assistant. And sometimes you do and sometimes you don't, you know. You just have to keep revising until you, I don't know, hit the jackpot. I mean, I have some marvelous assistants, but, you know, I've had to go through a number of different assistants to get to to those excellent assistants. And, you know, once you find them, it's always, oh my gosh, I do hope they stay.

Right.

But you're right, their life happens and you know that's not going to happen. So good suggestions on maintaining those, the files and the job descriptions and in detail and duty and also the— The recordings of how-to recordings are very helpful. If you could, you know, just speak to this. I have some virtual assistants, I mean the ones that I have now, I can just tell them what the problem is and they come up with the solutions. That's the ideal assistant. But those are kind of rare, I think. You do need those job descriptions in place and you need those training materials in place because those golden virtual assistants I think are kind of hard to come by. So you've got all of these in place and you have a business that is running now and you have put together a course that you actually help other people who are going through what you're going through to to do to not have to go through all the struggles that you went through. So tell us about your course and how it is that we can find that course.

Well, you know, as you know, Dr. Allen, because of this business that I've made from my real estate investing, I can now travel the world with my family. So, you know, it was a big deal when we first went from being in Northern Virginia to having a— at the time— to having rentals in Myrtle Beach. I was like, oh my gosh, it's an 8-hour drive away. And I Now I've set up a system where we're literally on the other side of the world for my long-term and short-term rentals, and it's okay. So I do love helping other people do that. I have a course that helps people know how to, to hire, onboard, and then manage a virtual assistant specifically tailored to real estate investors. So if you are that real estate investor and you've reached that peak of what you can do on your own, you're looking to, to learn how you're going to leverage someone else to grow and scale in a very cost-effective way with a virtual assistant. This is tailor-made for you. And you can find that at my website, adriennegreen.com, A-D-R-I-E-N-N-E-G-R-E-E-N.com. And I also have a free tool there, the Freedom Blueprint, that walks people through those 10 key systems or pieces that really helped me in setting up and getting to where I am now. So like, for example, one of them is accountability, like having an accountability partner or something like that, really was transformational for me creating what I have now. And so I've given you all those 10 keys for free as a download on that website as well.

So wonderful, wonderful resource there. Now that you have, have made this transition from struggling to, to put in place a real estate business to actually being able to experience the joys and the pleasures of having a real estate business that sustains your family and gives you the lifestyle and freedom that you want. What are the main and big challenges in actually sustaining that?

Hmm.

The challenges in, I think, sustaining the system are first continuing to— not resting on your laurels, right? So continuing to say, no, maybe you do want to buy more properties, maybe you don't. And yet you can still maximize the system you have in place. And you know, if you're not growing, you're dying, right? And so that's one thing is realizing wherever, when you've got that business, having that business is going to take some continued work to be like, how are we doing the best? So like, for example, I don't want to buy more short-term rentals right now, you know, and so I am Evaluating the income that we've made 2024 versus 2023, seeing where and seeing what was better, what was worse. Looking at it season by season, like you know my short-term rentals are in Myrtle Beach. We did even better this summer than last summer, but honestly our off-season was worse. And so let's dive into how can we fix that. But that's just a specific example of once you've got the business in place. We— there's lots of things you can do to continue to maximize, to continue to improve. And so we need to make sure that we don't take it for granted and just stop growing, because that's the start of death.

Yeah, for sure. Well, Adrienne, what are your last words of wisdom for us today?

I think the last thing I would say is the The last thing I would say is don't stress about doing the exact perfect way your first time. If it's your first time, it is not going to be perfect, and that's okay because we learn from our mistakes. So just make the best decision you can with what you know at the time, get in, and when you make those mistakes, accept it, learn from it, and continue leveling up.

Wonderful advice, Adrienne, and wonderful having you with us today. Thank you for sharing your life and your Your struggles and your success. And Enlightened Investors, thank you so much for being with us today. Please take a moment to like, share, and subscribe, and we'd be very grateful if you could leave us a rating and a review. They do make a big difference. Until next time, we'll see you in the next episode.

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