534: Liz Faircloth: How To Build A Passionate Tribe Through Your Mission To Fuel Your Business — Cashflow Ninja

Welcome to the Cashflow Ninja, the podcast sharing how to create and grow income streams and manage, multiply, and protect your wealth in the new economy. Are you tired of trading your time for money? Do you desire freedom today instead of retirement in 10, 20, or 30 years? I'm MC Laubscher, and this is the Cashflow Ninja. Hello, Cashflow Ninjas, MC Laubscher here, and welcome to another episode of the Cashflow Ninja. I have a great show for you today. In today's show, we're going to look at how to build a passionate tribe through your mission to fuel your business. My guest in this episode is Liz Faircloth. Liz began her investing career with the purchase of a duplex with a $30,000 loan outside of Philadelphia. After selling this duplex and moving to New Jersey, she co-founded the DeRosa Group with her husband, Matt Faircloth. The DeRosa Group, based in Trenton, New Jersey, is a developer and owner of commercial and residential property with a mission to transform lives through real estate. While helping grow the DeRosa portfolio, she had a career for many years where she worked with Fortune 500 companies to develop team and talent development programs. Liz started the Real Estate Investor Show with Andresa Giardelli, providing women real estate investors with education, support, and inspiration to live a financially free and balanced life. This podcast has grown into a movement for women real estate investors with over 20 meetup groups nationwide and growing across the United States. I've been super impressed with what Liz and Andresa have created and built, and I'm super excited to talk to her about the investor community as well. If you've not checked out my new podcast, Cashflow Investing Secrets, You totally should. I would highly recommend it. It's a shorter show, 10 minutes or less, where I share one concept and/or idea at a time, what I've learned from interviewing over 500 Cashflow Ninjas. You can listen to the show on your favorite podcast, video, and live streaming platform. We also have an investment group and community for accredited investors. If you're interested to join the group, please visit CashflowNinjaInvestorsNetwork.com. You can also join us on Facebook by searching Cashflow Ninja Community. My friend Brian Page has created a cash flow machine generating over $100,000 in 6 months without owning any real estate. His system consists out of renting properties from property owners and renting them out on Airbnb. His system is so simplistic it can be managed by virtual assistants and yet so effective and powerful that it predictably generates cash flow every month. Brian and I are hosting a webinar where he shares his system and how it generated over $100,000 in 6 months for him personally. You can access this life-changing webinar at CashFlowNinja.com/bnb. This is one of the greatest cash flow opportunities I've seen since I've started my podcast. Again, the URL is CashFlowNinja.com/bnb. /bnb. Savvy investors know that in order for the miracle of compounding interest to work its magic, you have to be constantly invested in all stages of the economic cycle. So the question then becomes, how do you find solid investments when the stock market is close to all-time highs and everything else just seems so inflated? That's where our friends at Acim Capital come in. Since 2011, Acim has helped more than 300 accredited investors allocate more than $20 $25 million to mobile home parks, self-storage, and workforce housing due to their ability to perform well during economic recessions. If you're interested in learning more, head on over to asymcapital.com, that's asymcapital.com, to get instant access to their investment offerings. Liz, welcome to the show.

Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so happy to be here.

Yeah, excited to have you on. We're gonna have a lot of fun. I've been looking forward to this because I think the message that you're gonna share today is very, very powerful, especially for all of our very successful women entrepreneurs, business owners, and real estate investors. Before we get started, can you share a little bit about your journey and your background with my listeners?

Sure, absolutely. So, yeah, we, my husband and I kind of got started when we were fairly young, in our early, kind of early to mid-20s. We both were I was a social worker by background. I was getting my master's degree in social work. My husband's an engineer by background. And we got together, we started dating, and just all of our conversations always led to, you know, what do we want most out of life? You know, we had these very deep conversations very soon in the relationship. And I'm like, you know, this is special, you know? And we really wanted to build something together. And we always wanted to work for ourselves. Neither of us had a lot of family that actually were entrepreneurs or work for themselves. But we had this yearning and we saw it as a possibility. My brother-in-law actually started a business from nothing. And I think my husband had like an example in his world. So, we saw it as a possibility. It just wasn't this common thing that everyone in your family did or what have you. My father actually did some investing as well, real estate investing, and same with my in-laws. So, we had family that had experience, but never as a full-time gig by any means. So, long story short, we took a bunch of courses. We knew we needed to do that. It was really scary at first, like many people, and that you buy your first property. And we bought our first duplex when we were engaged still. My father lent us $30,000. And then we bought the duplex with none of our own money. We didn't really have any money to do that with. So anyway, we bought the duplex and just learned so much about it, learned so much about real estate. We're like, we want to do more of this. And then we decided actually to get, you know, get married in Jersey, move to Jersey and kind of really focus on growing our business in New Jersey. So, that's really where we bought most of our initial properties, was more in like the Mercer County central area, central, you know, central Mercer County, you know, Jersey sort of area. And then, you know, then the recession hit. We had about 40 units under our belts around then. And they were fairly leveraged. So, you know, these weren't like, you know, making us lots of money just yet. And the recession hit. We had bought a commercial property. And long story short, just learned a lot, learned a lot around that, kept everything stable, kept everything running. I had quit my job a little bit after that, which also was disastrous for, for us in many ways. I've worked with my husband a lot of different times in our relationship and tenure of doing this. And like I said, the first time was horrible. And then, and then we learned through that. I ended up going back to my work because I was working full-time. And long story short, we started to raise money in 2010. We got back on our feet and really started to grow our business and grow, you know, in terms of unit size and, you know, really geographic areas and just really grew our business from there. And really, really maintaining for a few years, you know, where you just kind of keeping hold of everything. And then we got into the growth mode and then, you know, here we are. So, we've been doing this for about 15 years.

Yeah. No, and for my listeners out there, it's kind of funny how things, the world works. I literally live like 10 to 15 minutes from Liz and Matt. And Matt's been on the show before too. Just, if you go to CashFlowNinja.com and search Matt Faircloth, you'll find Matt's episode on there too. And I've gotten to know the two of them pretty well over the past year. And it's just been fantastic to see all the things that you're doing, that you're creating, and that you're part of and super excited to touch on one of the things in a second. I had a follow-up question too from, so from 2008 in that beginning, so you guys went from duplexes, you started with a duplex, did some single family, went into multifamily, started raising some money. What were some of the lessons of 2008 and around that time, some of the stuff that you guys saw that you took and applied in your business right to this day?

Yeah. You know, there's a lot of things you kind of wish you can rewind, right? But you wouldn't be the people you are if you didn't go through what you went through. So, one of the things I would say was the importance of focus. You know, there's a lot of education out there that people do, you know, they'll do flips and wholesaling so they can fund their rental business. And, you know, there's a lot of strategies out there. And I think there is some truth to some of that. I do also know that we got involved in too many projects that were not, you know, multifamily has always been our bread and butter. Bread and butter, meaning we've been able to scale that, we've been able to grow it. We've done it well. Not every product, not every building we bought is just amazing. But a lot, you know, we've learned a lot through that. Then we bought a commercial building. Now we've made it something really great now. And I think it's actually in a place after 10 years of owning it, is in a place that it's, you know, getting to where the thriving angle of it, but that hasn't paid us a check ever, to be perfectly frank. So, my point is that had we focused and just bought multifamily, I think we'd probably be in a different position. We may not be the people we are. But, you know, I think that, you know, you get distracted in this business. So many people are doing well in so many different niches. I would just say focus. Start becoming really, really good at something and rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat. It should be boring, you know? And then you can pivot. And had we pivoted after we got something really going, that's smart. People do that. That's what business is all about, which I have done now too. But we pivoted too soon without actually building something really well in one area. We kind of were dabbling. So that would be my biggest lesson to folks listening. The power of focus. And I think what's hard as I look back is that my husband and I, that's not necessarily our personality. And that's where the rub is, where your personality traits are one thing, but to be successful in business, it is sort of like the rinse and repeat and you have to really do something over and over again. And that's not always, that's aligned with some personalities, that's not for everyone. So you have to be mindful of that. And really like get your personality needs met in other ways besides just your business. So, that's what I would say.

That's so true though too. Like in a lot of businesses, I think how it looks like from the outside is always exciting, you know, sexy, great cocktail party conversation, all that kind of stuff. But inside, there's a lot of things that are done consistently and are repeated over and over because you have predictable systems and processes and so forth. In place.

That's really the, that's the business piece of it. So yeah, there's the real estate investing piece, and then there's like running the business piece. And we kind of had to learn that really, and we're still learning it, to be honest with you. And, you know, we both kind of got into this without knowing any of that. So it takes a little longer, you know, someone's got that business entrepreneurial mindset already. And then they jump into investing, they could just apply everything they know. And then those are those success stories, like, you know, they've gotten, you know, 500 units in less than a year. Those are the people that usually have some great skills already and now they're applying it to real estate investing. But we, I always say, we kind of grew up in this. So, we kind of had to learn a lot and, you know, kind of get beat up a little bit here and there and then you kind of learn from it and keep moving forward.

Absolutely. And the DeRosa Group, you guys are in a couple of states now too, not just in New Jersey. Maybe you can share just some of the the multifamily in some of the states that you're in and what you guys are looking at in multifamily.

Yeah, you know, and our strategy shifted over the years. You know, we got started in New Jersey. I actually teach like a webinar about this. And it's funny because, you know, think about what made, what made us invest initially in Trenton, New Jersey. It was close. We knew we can make a difference because it needed so much and properties were cheap.

Yeah.

So, kind of checked off those three boxes. So, we jumped in. Now, that's not necessarily our criteria, right? There's a lot more to to it, you know, job growth and job diversity and stability and all these other economic factors you, you don't really think about, or we did not think about, I should say, when we got started. We just wanted to get started. So, so yeah, we took on mostly kind of revitalizing, we really were committed to revitalizing Trenton and the properties we bought and the things we did. And that's really where we got our start. So, we still, we have about 150 units, give or take, they're still, you know, stabilized. We have a few renos we're still doing. And then we started to see, you know, as the years go on, the taxes go up. The Northeast was getting harder and harder to kind of make things work, even in certain parts, depending on what you're getting into. And we wanted to grow. So, we got an opportunity to start to, we bought a building in Philadelphia. We've since sold that. And then we got involved in a property in Lancaster. And we opened our eyes to, wow, okay, we can build a property management team around this. We don't have to be managing everything ourselves because that's what we were doing. When we were kind of our first many, many years, about 8 years, we were managing everything with a team. So, we had about 5 people on our team and we're kind of just hands-on, you know, type of folks with that. And then, we're like, okay, we can't scale this with ourselves, right? We can't just drive out to Lancaster to do a showing or what have you. So, we had to really partner up with the property management team. We did that and then that opened our eyes to, okay, wow, if we can do that, we can, you know, start to grow. And then, we've since bought a building in North Carolina and then 2 apartment buildings in Kentucky. So, you know, the Northeast has its advantages but the Southeast, at least what we're finding, I'm sure there's other great markets that people are getting involved in, just, they just make more sense financially. You know, your money goes a little further. The stability of the markets and the economic factors. We're not investing in like the hottest A markets. That's not really our business model. We're more in those value-add, stable, working-class type of environments where people need a great place to live, have good jobs, but these aren't like the trendiest places per se. And those are the environments you know, we tend to really like and are, tend to be a little more stable for our, what we're trying to meet in terms of our goals. So, yeah, we kind of really have become more focused on things in the Southeast. And we're looking at other states now, but they're all in that pocket of a little more of that Southeast environment.

And one of the things that I've seen Liz and Matt does, but you both do really, really well, is building networks and building relationships. You're both very giving people, sharing your knowledge and sharing it out there. And you've done so on platforms, BiggerPockets obviously, and all of the different networks that you're in. And one of the things as a person that loves to study marketing is that literally the DeRosa brand is two attractive characters because Matt does a lot of content on BiggerPockets, Liz as well. But one of the things that I wanted to talk about is the community that you've created with the InvestHer community through your podcast and through your show with Andresa because that's really been extremely, extremely exciting to see what's going on there.

There.

Maybe you can share just with us why you started that, what were some of the things that inspired you to create that brand and community, and just share some of the really exciting things that are going on with that community. Here's one thing that I'll mention, and I'll just share this because I want to make sure this is on the show, that there was a BiggerPockets conference where Liz spoke at, and they gave them one basically room And because of the brand that Liz has built along with Matt, there was just too many people. They couldn't fit everybody into the place. So, Matt had actually had to take like all of the folks that they couldn't fit in to hear you speak to a different place and, you know, being Matt, obviously like, I don't want to let these people down. They came here to hear you but they can't go in. So, we'll just take them somewhere else. And he just, I think he found like a courtyard or something and he did something. So, that's the power of it. But yeah, what inspired you for this investor community? And so forth.

Yeah. And I turned to Matt that, in that moment of seeing this whole thing unfold, and I was like, "Matt, go take these folks out there. Go find a place." And I had the woman next to me who actually was in charge of the hotel look at me saying, "There's no space to do anything." And I said, "Matt, go find a place. You can go find a place with these people." And so, it would be kind of divide and conquer. We just wanted to be of help. But yeah, I mean, you know, my partner in this, on investor side of it, Well, first of all, I'll just rewind. I love working with my husband. However, I, you know, I was in corporate as my husband grew the business and I was involved. I also was, I kept working until I had my first son, which was 2013. So I was traveling, I had my own thing, I had a consulting practice, I did management consulting. And my husband was growing our business. And like I said, I was involved, but in a peripheral way. So when I knew I had my son in 2013, I wanted to go back to getting involved back in our own business with the DeRosa Group. But I also had this thing in me. I'm like, I gotta do my own thing. I didn't know what that was, to be honest with you. But that was just kind of on me to, as a woman, as a mom, I just needed something that was mine that didn't involve my husband, or if it did, it was like, you know, we were kind of supportive to each other. It wasn't his only thing, or my own thing. So anyway, fast forward to connecting with my partner, Andresa. We were doing a couple different deals with Andresa. At the time, we were we flipped some properties in Philly, we did a new construction deal. So we were kind of business partners on the real estate side. And her and I had a women's mastermind that we just started on our own. We wanted to pull women together about 4 years ago. And we have a monthly Zoom call. And we would also get together, me and Andresa, just brainstorm ideas. And we were just always that kind of like support system for each other. And over coffee one day, we were talking, we're like, how cool would it be to like Do this on a larger scale and really help women in this business because, you know, we didn't get that. I didn't get that. Andressa is a little more hands-on in the construction side. I, you know, I haven't got some of the things that, you know, she has. And I had other experience in multifamily and landlording. And just between the two of us, we're like, it'd be really neat to interview women in this business. It'd be really neat to focus on women. We have nothing against men. Men are awesome. I've had a lot of great men in my kind of professional career, even in corporate life. I never had these these horrible experiences that a lot of women have to go through. But regardless of that, we still wanted to create a community where women could support women, because that is something that we look for. And we were kind of looking to find other women like us, to be perfectly frank. Women that are looking to grow their businesses and they're also balancing everything together. Because as moms, we have young kids, both Andresa and I. And even if you're a woman that doesn't have young children, you're usually balancing a lot, and men are as well. I don't mean to dismiss that because my husband's balancing things, but women are still the leaders, right? At the home, at home with their kids, even if they have aging parents, they're the ones that step up. And let's just be frank, that's just what is the reality. And I have a very, very supportive and involved husband. He just watched my kid, my kids, our kids for a week when I was away in France. So I mean, I have a great husband who's amazing. I mean that I'm sure he'll be happy to hear that as he's listening to this, but he doesn't listen to this. But my point in saying all that is we wanted to create something special for women and we thought women would appreciate it. And we really didn't know, but we kind of had that hunch, right? So we said, what's the best medium to do this? And I was basically doing a lot of presentations and speaking in my previous work. So I love teaching. I love consulting. That was what I did for 10 years. And Andresa, same. She just loves teaching and helping others. We said, all right, let's, let's start podcast. You know, that would be, let's, let's figure that being the medium we should start with. So, we launched the Real Estate InvestHer podcast in 2018, about a year and a half ago. And we were like committed to interviewing only women investors. And so, we've had about 80 guests. It's been a great, great way to, we said, we always said if no one listens to this and it goes nowhere, we will get something from it. Like, you know, selfishly, we will interview some great women. And so it's— what's been neat about it is we've been able to connect with so many women. And I've never had a problem interviewing women. And I had, had a couple guys come up to me at the beginning and we were talking and I said, oh, we're interviewing only women, because they had like suggested some men. I said— they said, you're going to run out of women at some point. And I said, I don't think so. I don't think we will. I think I think we'll be fine. I think there's a lot of women who invest because here's the reality. If you want to have a growing family and you want to have flexibility in your work, you know, most of the women we interview have had the corporate jobs and they leave that to do this. You know, that's a very common story. I have a successful, and it's not like they get fired and they have, they're useless people. Like these are successful women who are in the corporate world who are just like, I'm done for someone telling me what I need to do when I need to do it when I know I want to pick up my kid at 3:45. You know, so, real estate investing in this game that we're in of, it really gives you that, can give you that flexibility. So, I think a lot of women would appreciate that. Not everyone. But I think there is that yearning for balancing everything and being a great mom and being someone who wants to also grow their finances. So, yeah, that I think that attracts women to this business. And so, yeah, that's what inspired it. And then, what's come of it, or what we've grown it to. And, you know, Andresa and I have been really, really, really strategic with what we're up to and what we're trying to create. We're really creating a community of women to support other women. This wasn't about like the Liz and Andresa Show where, you know, we do, you know, we just do things that people want to be, want to hear from us only. I think I have a lot of good things to share about some topics. I don't think I know everything about everything when it comes to investing. There's some people that, there's some women that have stepped up and men, you know, even just that are amazing at underwriting deals. You don't want me teaching a webinar on that. I mean, I could give you some generalities. That's not something I need to dive deep though. You don't want to hear from me on that. Andresa is amazing at certain things. So, we knew we can, between the two of us, we had some things to share. I can really teach on some key things. Same with her. But we wanted to create something that we can bring a lot of women together to teach and help and serve. So, we created a Facebook community, free Facebook community, the investor community, and we've about, we've almost like 1,700 women on that group, which is super cool. That's been going for about a year. And, you know, just women jumping in, we ask them questions, they ask questions, like they're just getting, we've had women say, I bought my first rental property because of this group. I've done this because of this group. So, you know, the feedback has been really, really awesome. And then we we started a meetup group last year. And we said, okay, this would be kind of neat because we can bring women physically together, right? Because it's one thing online, it's another thing physically. Now, that's a little bit harder for women, right? Because it is hard to get out sometimes because you got bedtime, you got this, you got that. So, that does present sometimes a challenge. But we knew that we wanted to put it out there. So, we started with the Philly group, Philadelphia. And then, in just talking with folks and actually, you know, give a shout out, Dan Hanford has grown a great community of multifamily meetups across the country. And I saw him doing that. I'm like, that's interesting. So, we had a call. He was very gracious and very generous with his time, kind of shared a little bit about how he did that. And that inspired me to, for us to really think through how do we grow our community through meetup. And so, that's what we did at the beginning of this year. We started with our next meetup, which was in right outside of Philly, Conshohocken. A lot of women we knew connected at first. Now we're meeting with women that we don't know, which is cool. So we've grown that to about 18 meetups around the country, which is super cool. We have less representation on the West Coast, so I really would love to get more of those going there. But yeah, and really it consists of women getting together with women, having speakers, having that kind of— I've been to a lot of them, and the biggest thing women appreciate is that they feel like they're in a safe place to get the support they need. And, you know, to some people that is not something they look for, right? I've never heard my husband say that he needs a safe place by any means. And safe meaning they're not going to like get hurt if they go to other meetups. But it's male-oriented. And when there's like 40 people and you're the only woman or you and another woman are the only women, you know, it could get a little intimidating. I can get intimidated if I'm talking with folks that, you know, are a little more seasoned than I am even, you know, it's that feeling of, whoa. So we're really up to creating these environments where women feel comfortable, feel like they can get the encouragement, get the accountability and kind of achieve their goals. You know, women have left, they're creating their own masterminds, doing accountability partners. Now they know other women in their community that can help them or that they can help each other. So that's why we did that. And, you know, in terms of where we're headed, you know, we don't have this master plan to take over the universe by any means. But what we are up to is really creating more of that deeper membership. So we're actually creating like a membership site. And we're going to launch it in 2020. And we're kind of putting that together right now where women log in, you know, it kind of like a monthly approach, kind of like Netflix, but I don't think it'll be $10.99. I think we'll have to charge more than that. But regardless, it'll be like a monthly support network where you can come in. And you're kind of like one of these types of women where you, you're a professional, you're an entrepreneur, but now you wanted to get into real estate investing, or you're someone which is a very common person, you have some rental properties, but now you're looking to scale. And, or women who kind of been there and done that, who are just looking to also expand. So, We're creating kind of like modules for all those pieces and educational material. But really the point will be also to bring other women to teach. And so one of the big things will be accountability groups and also masterminding, you know, where women are getting together and saying, here are my goals, here are my challenges, with other women on their path. And then our ultimate goal is to have like more of like a conference and those sorts of things. But this membership is kind of the beginning of creating this kind of like a little more in-depth A little more, you know, where we can give a little more handholding. Not handholding, we all need our hands held to be honest with you at different times. But that's where we can do it.

You're listening to The Cash Flow Ninja, the show helping people all over the world create monthly cash flow and achieve freedom today, not in 10, 20, 30, and/or 40 years. This is the show where cash is not king but cash flow is king. We will be right back after a word from our sponsors. MC Lovejoy here, the creator of the Cashflow Ninja and cashflow coach at Producers Wealth, where we help our clients integrate infinite banking with their business and investments. To learn how you can create your own banking system to turbocharge your investments and business in 30 days or less, go to yourownbankingsystem.com. That's your yourownbankingsystem.com. My friend Dave Zook from The Real Asset Investor says you can be conventional or you can be wealthy. Pick one. The Real Asset Investor team creates value for investors looking for higher yield returns from ATM machines and self-storage investments. Their syndications offer attractive investment opportunities that produce strong cash flow, equity growth, huge tax incentives. They are truly passive and managed by a world-class team. To learn more about the exciting investment opportunities The Real Estate Investor offers, such as their ATM and self-storage syndications, please visit CashFlowNinja.com/RealAssetInvestor. You're listening to The Cash Flow Ninja, the show helping people all over the world create monthly cash flow and achieve freedom today Not in 10, 20, 30, and/or 40 years. This is the show where cash is not king, but cash flow is king. Now, let's return to our interview. It's been super exciting to see the growth of this community. I was at the Learn and Grow event where at the Renault Winery and just there was quite a large part of the group was the investor community, right? And that this past weekend, the Mid-Atlantic Summit was down in Philadelphia hosted by Dave Van Horn and his team, also guests, former guests on the show. And there was a very large community there of the investor community, which was very exciting to see and the growth of this. And folks are reaching out to you guys now too saying, hey, can we start an investor meetup in our specific town?

Yeah, which is super cool. And we're, you know, we wanted to create like a win-win, right? So, these women have followed up with us, like we want them to get the exposure they want to grow their business, but we're all part of like this bigger mission to support more women. And I think that's, we've been really clear on that. So, that's what we kind of keep going back to. So, but yeah, so I found my thing, you know, this is the thing that I wanted to, you know, really find something that I can be passionate about. In addition to our core real estate work and my kids and, you know, being a good mom and all those really, really important things. So.

Yeah. It's very interesting to see what you've created here along with Andres and this community which keeps evolving and creating as ideas are bounced around because essentially, I think if my listeners are listening to this, there's so many great lessons here. We've all heard people talk about that you've just got to find your tribe. You know, they're out there. You know, if you create something, there are certain folks that are going to want to be part of your tribe. And you guys really have nailed down and created your tribe. In the process, helping a lot of women and then also, you know, fueling different businesses because of this. There's now a network that not only people can bounce ideas off around with, but they can partner. They can co-syndicate, right? There's a whole lot of different things and aspect to that which I think is just so powerful.

Yeah. No, absolutely. And that becomes like one of my, you know, you take up, people talk about like your superpower and like, what are you great at? And sometimes you can be like, you know, you have days you're like, I'm not good at anything. And then other days you're like, you know, I can connect people and I'm good at that. Like, where it's neat, like, someone's like, I need a property manager in XYZ city. I probably know someone who knows someone, or I do know someone there. Like, it's really neat to start building this cool network that you can support other people. And, you know, and even be like, you know, we're looking at this market. I'm like, I know someone there. I know, you know, so it's, you're kind of building your own, your own network, and building and helping other people build theirs. And I think, I think it's very, very important in this real estate investing world, because even if you're someone who's doing everything yourself right now with your portfolio, You could get to the point if you want to scale, you are, you cannot do it all yourself. I know very little people who built businesses in this, you know, real estate investing agenda, especially on the large apartment building avenue. I don't know about others, but I could just speak to that because that's really more our world. It's really hard to do it yourself, especially in a different geographic location. So, you know, partnerships and teams and connections become really the key to it beyond just making sure you're getting into the right deal and the numbers work and all those sort of kind of core things that need to happen. You know, do you have the team? And if not, can you lean on the team and do you have enough people in your network? So, that becomes one of the most important things. That is something that, you know, I could say both my husband and I love to do. We love helping other people and connecting other people and We both love to build relationships with others. That is something that we both, is a strength. Beyond the weaknesses we have and the struggles we've had, that's a strength. That's on the strength side. So—

No, it absolutely is. And just being around you guys and see that you really, really enjoy doing that and you're really, really good at it. So, I've appreciated that. So, just for listeners out there, so you guys have a podcast, The Investor Show. So, there's a podcast that you guys have and then a Facebook group. And then, you're doing the meetups, all of that. So, you're literally hitting folks. You know, audio is very, very powerful. You know, folks are probably commuting right now listening to us, working out, or just, you know, enjoying and relaxing. Yes, staying busy or even at work. And then, the Facebook group where people can interact and so forth. And then, meetups where you could actually have the physical human connection and having people in the same room and sharing. You know, just having a meetup of my own, I've also, I just I've gotten so much out of it personally too, just of connecting and listening to folks and people sharing different things. And you always pick something up in person too. So, you guys have a very good system here of hitting all kinds of angles of this community and to grow this community out.

Yeah. And, you know, it's interesting to do it along the ways of like Meetup because Meetup has these neat approaches where you're starting to build your email list, and your community. And like on Facebook, it's awesome, but I don't get people's emails and everything. It's not just about getting people's emails. I don't mean it like that. But as you— yeah, as you grow a community, you do have to think about that. Okay, so if I have something to share with this, this community, how do I do that? You know, what, what's the form of doing that? And I'm a big fan of email lists because we put out a monthly newsletter on the DeRosa side, and we just stay in touch with our community. And it's half education, and it's half, hey, this is what projects we have going on. These are current investors usually, so we just like to update them what we're up to if they want to get involved with something new. But it's a great way to stay in touch. Not like every day we're sending an email blast. That's super annoying and I hate that myself. But once a month is okay. I think that's reasonable. So by going down the meetup path route and building meetups, folks have said, yeah, I want to opt in if you have something to share. And that's been a really neat way to grow our communication with people on the InvestHer side. So, you know, we, for example, we put out a survey. I kept going through my head, we had this skeleton of what we want to offer our membership and the coach, we have a coach because, you know, coaches and people to help you with something new is critical or we're just going to keep spinning our heads. So, Andres and I hired this woman to help us. She's built like 250 membership sites, great lady. And she said, have you surveyed your membership? I mean, your current community, what they want to see. And we're both like, that's a great idea. It seems like an obvious thing, right? But we just didn't think of it. We kind of thought, oh, well, you know, we should tell them, but no, that, you know, your customers and your community needs to tell you what they want. And so anyway, we ended up putting out a survey to about 1,500 people, women, 1,500 women that were part of our email list now. And we got 167 people to fill out that survey. That's 10%, right? But that's really—

That's good. Yeah.

I was really happy with that. Now, you know, regardless of these women end up being in the membership or not, I was really pleased to see women, you know, doing that. And so my point in sharing that is, you know, you have to think through how am I able to communicate to my community and what's the best forum for that and how do I, how do we Hey, stay in touch. Because, you know, it's one thing to say, you know, check this out. But it's another thing to, you know, start to really build that relationship. And just by doing that, I hope, you know, and I say, hey, we'll give you some sort of free giveaway. And we did that as well, some, you know, tenant-landlord stuff that we've been through. So, you know, like, landlording docs and things. But my point in saying that is that was a big learning for me. And some of these ways to pull people together, I don't know if Eventbrite has that. I don't know if the other forums where you could build groups together, but Meetup does. And it's been helpful to stay in touch with our community.

Yeah. It's so, I mean, there's a lot to just learn from there of asking your folks in your community. And even if you're listening to this as a Cashflow Ninja listener and you have a Meetup, survey your Meetup, right? You'll get some different ideas and you never ever know what comes of all of this, right? There's one little thing that you picked pick up that might be a different route that elevates your business to the— and your, just your entire network to the next level.

Yep. Yeah, there's so many nuggets like we got from it. And actually, we asked them, how do you like the podcast? What do you want to see different? You know, and you get a lot of positive feedback. We got some negative feedback, you know, nice, nice negative. Of course, it wasn't like people, you know, if they're going to take the survey, they care enough to take the survey, but it's helpful, you know, you gotta, you know, put on your, you know, your adult pants and be like, big girl panties, as they say, and be like, okay, I could take that feedback. It's helpful to know that you don't like my storytelling or whatever the person said, right? I'm sure you've gotten the feedback, right? Oh, yes.

Oh, yes. Oh, yes.

You got to get feedback. You got to take it with stride and be okay. Well, how can I make this better? Because that's what it's really about, right? How do I make this better so we can serve and help more women? So, we were very mission-based and I'm like, okay, so if I need to shift that to help more women, okay, I can get, I can put my ego aside because, you know, it's not about me.

Yeah, absolutely. Love that. Mission-based. So, one habit I've observed from wealthy and successful people is that they're always studying and learning. What are you currently studying and learning?

You know, we read a book every quarter with the mastermind I had shared, group of women, and we're reading Superfans right now. By Pat Flynn. And you know, Pat Flynn just, you know, obviously a lot of folks know him because he's had such a successful podcast and online business. And he's a very giving person too. I like him a lot. I like his material a lot. And yeah, his book, it's by him, by Pat Flynn. And it's all about, you know, he basically starts out the book around, it's not about creating followers, right? It's really creating super fans. And how do you do that? How do you create people who will— and he gave the analogy of his wife going to like the, you know, NSYNC kind of concert and all these different sports teams, they're super fans, right? They, as they say with Penn State, people bleed blue, right? Because it's, that's a super fan. So he's like, okay, how do you do that in your own business? And then he goes through a bunch of different things. And some of them are like, so easy to do. Because you're like, hello, that was like obvious. Yeah, you know, it really gave, you know, people reaching out to you, get back to them or have a system of getting back to people. Simple stuff, right? It's like, yeah, someone reaches out, but as you get busy and you have like a million people to get back to on different things, it's, it gets harder sometimes. And so anyway, he's going through a bunch of suggestions. I'm really, I have a, I use Google Keep. So I'm reading it, but I have Google Keep out. And I literally have like DeRosa ideas, investor ideas, and I keep writing ideas for both because I kind of think in both those terms. And so, yeah, I would highly recommend people get that book. It's been really helpful. Yeah.

I would definitely check it out. And he's a big fan of what Pat's doing too. He's built a phenomenal, phenomenal online tribe. Yeah. So, definitely a lot to learn from him. Now, core message in our show is to leave our families, communities, and the the world better than we found it by passing down a mindset of values and principles to future generations, not just money. So, if you cannot pass on any money to future generations and were only allowed to pass on 3 principles to them to build wealth and achieve happiness and success, what would they be?

Hmm. It's a lot, right? I wonder if my kids, I wonder if my kids are listening when I tell them things, you know? But I guess, you know, I have to say be kind. I mean, I tell my son that every day. He's 5, he's about 6. And I say, make good choices. And I say, be kind. I mean, beyond that, you know, whether you learn something, that's helpful, right? We want our kids to learn stuff and be good. But beyond that, make good choices and be kind. So I think be kind would be one of them. I think the second one would be don't give up. Because it's really easy to say that to someone and it's easy to think that, you know, don't give up. All right, we all know that. But then you're in something that all you want to do is give up, you know, and it's hard, right? I don't mean like, you know, losing a project, but whether it's losing money or losing a lot of money or, you know, just tough things that happen in this business of investing that all of which have happened to us somehow in 15 years. We have a lot of them that has happened. I think the thing that continues to help us is the principle of never giving up. So, that would be second. So, you said 3, right?

Yeah.

I think the third thing, and I think this probably goes back to my upbringing, is, you know, you have to It's about giving and you should give. It's almost from the idea of you're able to give more to others by going beyond yourself. And I think sometimes we, I know myself, I can only speak personally, we get very into our own goals, our own life, our own world. But even today I was frustrated about certain things, maybe by getting back from a trip and you just have a lot to kind of get back into the loop on. And then you start comparing yourself or whatever stuff comes up for you. Those are a few things that come up for me. And then I got a text from someone about a situation, another fellow investor, their 4-unit went on fire and 3 of the tenants are homeless now. And these are probably 3 folks kind of, you know, living, living your life and now they're homeless. And I don't know if they had renter's insurance and all the things that we ask as investors. But, I said, I gotta do something to help. So I donate some money. And I know this investor very well. So I'm like, here, here's some money. I trust you. And I put it out on Facebook. Not the hardest thing to do, right? What did it take me? But it felt good to help and go beyond myself. I literally have a million things to do today, just because of getting back from being away from two trips. But I'm like, that's the best use of my time right now. Before I get my kids, I need to put a note out because I'm not homeless. Let's put it in perspective. Like, okay, I just came back from two great trips and I'm going to complain about being busy when these people don't have a home? Like, something's off there. So I'm like, so I got out of my, you know, my own complaints and my own stuff that I have. And I'm like, I gotta do something that I can do to help. And that's something I can help. I can give some money and I can share it with other people. So that felt good. So that would be the third thing is to go beyond yourself. And give beyond yourself.

Those are fantastic, and thank you for sharing them. Where can folks learn more about you, all of the businesses, DeRosa Investor? Where can they reach out and where can they stay involved with all of the projects that you're involved with?

Sure. So, it's derosagroup.com. It's D-E-R-O-S-A group, G-R-O-U-P dot com, is, you know, kind of like our core real estate investing work. Where we work with passive investors and we work with, you know, more on the syndications and, you know, putting people's money to work. So, that's that side of the business. In terms of the InvestHer side, in terms of our meetups and our community and our podcast, it's kind of like one clearinghouse. You can get it from DeRosa Group, but it's the direct site is TheRealEstateInvestHer.com. So, that's where you can go to Check out our podcast and go to iTunes, but, you know, our InvestHer Facebook community link is on there and same with the meetups if you want to learn more about that.

Awesome. Well, all of those links will be in the show notes for today. Let's thank you so much for connecting again. I always enjoy our conversations. Appreciate you and thank you for coming on the show and sharing all of this incredible knowledge with my audience.

Thank you. Thank you, MC. And I just really thank you so much for having us, having me on and being a big fan of your show for many years. And you've just been amazing as well. So, I know your listeners know this, but you are a very, very, very giving person. So, thank you for being yourself and just all you do because, you know, my husband and I have really— the feeling is mutual. We've really enjoyed connecting with you and getting to know you and just working with you. So, you're up to some amazing things as well. So, it's an honor.

Thank you so much. Appreciate you guys. Life Settlement Investments have allowed financial and banking institutions to not only buy their equity contractually, but also diversify their capital from any economic, market, and geopolitical risk. It's been part of the billion-dollar blueprint followed by institutional investors, and if you're an accredited investor, you can also now participate in this vehicle with enormous growth potential. You can watch an informational webinar presented by one of the premier organizations providing life settlement investments, but a number of solutions at CashFlowNinja.com/LifeSettlements. Thank you again for joining me on the Cash Flow Ninja. If you like what you hear and appreciate what we're trying to build here, please subscribe, rate, and write a review for our show on iTunes and share our show with family, friends, and your network. If you're not a subscriber to our newsletter, you can sign up for our newsletter at CashFlowNinja.com. I want to thank you for spending your most precious resource with me today, your time. Until next time, my friends, and live a life of passion and purpose on your terms. This presentation is for educational and informational purposes only. The information being presented and considered does not consider your particular financial objectives or situation, and it does not make personalized recommendations. This material is not intended to replace the advice of a qualified tax and legal advisor or other qualified professionals, and you should not use the information in place of a customized consultation with a licensed professional regarding your specific personal financial objectives, situation, and needs. We believe the information provided is reliable, but we do not guarantee its accuracy, timeliness, or completeness.