Your Riches are in the Niches (Minisode)

Welcome ladies to The Real Estate InvestHer Show, providing inspiration, strategies, and insight to empower women investors to live balanced and financially free lives. Now here are your co-hosts, Liz and Andresa Guidelli. Welcome back ladies.

This is Liz and this is Andresa.

Welcome back to The Real Estate InvestHer Show. Our mission is to empower women to live a financially balanced life, whatever balance means to you. I just took your phrase, Andresa Guidelli. You took it.

Now I don't know what to say.

But we're talking about the power of really focusing on a niche and really what it means to focus on a niche and what the process is in focusing on the niche and the benefits. So that's what we're talking about today.

I love that because I think a lot of real estate investors, especially at the beginning, want to serve everything. Everybody, right? And that gets very complicated when, when you don't have a focus. So I'm very excited about this episode. Before we get into that story, let's hear a word from our sponsors.

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Okay, Andresa, so a couple of things. I thought of this topic because so many times, you know, for Andresa and I, we also are teaching on the wins we've had, the good things we've done in investing, and also the things that we haven't done well. And so you're learning from, from, from, from both. So we had a, we had a real challenge when, when my husband and I started our, our, our investing kind of path. We were challenged, I should say, that we got involved with various niches all at the same time. And I think that's due to a lot of different reasons. That's probably a whole other episode, Andresa. But a little bit of being naive, being young. We were in our 20s and, you know, not having the knowledge and the how important it is to get really focused. I don't think we even knew that. And we kind of learned that along the way. So at one point we were flipping properties, we bought raw land, we had a commercial building, we had a rental property, single family, small multi, and we also bought some tax liens. Right. So that's 5. Just, just so everyone's clear. All at the same time. Okay. This is pre-Andresa. This is pre-Andresa. There was, though, there was life before Andresa. I just imagine you both, as we like to say, it was an S-H-I-T show, right? Depending on who's listening. But anyway, it was really, it was really something that we again created. And then as you, as you kind of create a mess, if you will. And it wasn't a complete mess, but it was, it was a, it was a lot of different pieces that were going on. You step back and go, I remember it very, very clearly. Of course it was me going to Matt and it was like 2010. I say that because I've kind of been the leader of a lot of our pivots and I feel like I've been the leader of a lot of the, quite honestly, very strategic moves we've made in, in our business over the years.

I think, you know, you're a visionary. I don't know Matt's number is on, on the visionary board, Right. So you can see ahead, so you can pivot now before you get there, kind of.

Yeah. And, and in 2010, we were still involved in various type of different, different niches. And, and, and we had like one of those, you know, coming to Jesus meetings where, you know, and I highly recommend you and your partner, you and your spouse, you and whomever you're working closely, have a strategic meeting once a month. At least. So you're kind of looking on— you're working on the business, not just in the business. We're really good at working in the business, but we have to work on it. So just sidebar. So during one of these, these meetings, we were talking a lot about the stress of these different niches and what was happening, and the contractor and the, you know, make the long list. And I said to him— and I remember it very clearly, you know, when you say things, you remember these moments— I said, where, where do you think we're having the most success? You know, and at that point At that point, I had gone back to my job, so I wasn't as involved day to day because I've had different roles in our company. And he said, our small multis. I said, tell me more. And they started to kind of give me the recipe of what was working, buying a dilapidated property, fixing it up, the classic, you know, BRRRR strategy, buying it, renovating it, refinancing, and then repeating it, right? Renting it too. Obviously that's important. And so I started, we started, and I said, what's the size of the property? Where is the property located? Like, as specific as you can get. How are we financing it? I knew these answers, but what I was trying to do to, and what we were doing together is to really focus on what about this was working. And then we talked about the other niches, what wasn't working. So my first tip to you is that, you know, we have a lot of women who have properties and, and have, you know, experience in investing. Are you doing the work to say, am I focused on a niche? If I'm not focused on a niche, why is that? And where am I having the most success or where have I had? The most success? That's another good question to ask. So that's just the first step that you want to take to kind of reevaluate. So once we said that and once we said, okay, small multi, this is how we buy it, we started to raise private money, but by no means really scale that. So what would it look like if we were to scale this business and scale this, this niche, if you will? So we got excited by that and said, okay, What do you need to really get focused, right? You need to start getting obviously committed to your goals, having your goals established, committing to them. But most importantly, obviously processes and systems and team start to arise even the importance of those things start to arise even more when you start to say, okay, I wanna do this again and again and again. I've become a very big fan of how do you repeat the process? I'm not saying I'm great at that piece of it, but I, I certainly appreciate how do you repeat this process? With more ease and, and in a simpler, easier way. That's when you know you could start to scale a net, you know, start to scale and start to really create that energy. So first, you want to identify the niche. If you have multiple things happening, where are you having the most success? The second thing is asking yourself the question, how can I repeat this process? And again, where do I need to adjust the process, the system, and the team to be able to do more of this? Over and over and over again. I heard someone say once, and it was on a podcast or something, but, but they basically said business in some ways should be boring. Like, where you're having success in some ways should be boring. Not boring where you're not bringing energy to it, but think about rinse and repeat. There's a level of little— and I think some people who are, you know, have the different personality styles who like to create, they'll just create kind of messes where they need to because they just want that variety. Right.

But really, they're shitting themselves on the foot. Correct. Right. They are fulfilling their need to be creative, but they're shitting themselves on the foot because they are creating chaos, a new process every week.

Correct. And that's not going to help you scale. So that would be my recommendation. The piece to repeat is to say, how we— what are we doing well with this particular property? Like, so our multifamily, like, what about this process is working? And again, just you know, keep, keep tweaking, keep reevaluating and, and start to say, just keep shifting and moving that, moving the needle to kind of get your processes, your systems, and then your team kind of aligned. So that's my recommendation. I, I think once we did that, more deals came our way and we were able to rinse and repeat outside our market. 'Cause once we were able to do it within one particular market, we said, okay, we can do that here. And we're starting to get a little bit outpriced in New Jersey and starting to get a little more expensive. Taxes are going up. Where else can we do that? And then we started to get presented with deals outside the state, and that gave us kind of confidence in, quite honestly, rinsing and repeating, even though it was away from our, our market that we're familiar with. The process we repeated, it was not a new process nor a new system, if you will. So again, you want to mitigate risk when you're, when you're doing this. Just keep, keep those tips in mind. Identify the niche. And then ask yourself, where am I having success? And then once you get really niched down and focused, say, how can I repeat this process and where do I need to adjust and how do I move forward? So that's what I have for you this, this week. Please tag us. We really encourage you to, to tag us in our Facebook community. What's coming up for you? What are you, what are you doing with what you're learning? We love to see that. So please, please take some action. Do one thing as a result of today's mini-sode.

And let us know, what did you hear about, what did you get out of this episode? Many people see the opportunities right now, they hear a lot of other people say, oh, this is the best thing ever. Oh no, no, this is the best thing ever, right? So let's process it together, right? If you're listening to this podcast and it's coming up for you like, ah, yes, but, or, uh, not sure about that because this is my situation, Please go to our Facebook community, tag us there, share what's coming up for you. That's how we are going to be able to support you because you're probably not alone on those thoughts. So we can really process it together. Thanks so much for listening. You enjoyed this podcast and want to receive updates on our next interviews? Go to our website, therealestateinvestor.com. There you can subscribe to our show, become part of our investor community, and get updates on upcoming episodes.

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