How to Escape the 9–5 with Rentals with Mandy McAllister #195

If you grew up on a farm in a small town of 800 people, got out as a D1 volleyball recruit, where she saw a friend's dad buy a rental property and decided, hey, I can do that. And today is a multifamily property investor and operator and leads a mastermind called GoBundance, Women Helping Women power up their lives. Your name can only be Mandy McAllister. Welcome.

Thank you, Jeff. That was so much fun. I appreciate that so much.

Is that you. Do I have the right? Because, you know, sometimes chat serves up erroneous information. Now I know that's you. We know each other. We've talked.

Yes. No, that was really great. Thank you for. Thank you for having me today.

Well, welcome to the flagship voyage of the unemployable podcast with Jeff Duden. You know, we've been operating as home front on the home front, and, you know, we thought we'd switch it up a little bit and go a little bit edgier towards, but when we looked at it, everybody that had been on the podcast had been some form of maverick or business builder or done something interesting or different, and unemployable seemed to fit. So we're very excited to have you on today as we sail forth into the ocean of unemployment.

I love it. Actually, I had a conversation with my dad, who's a farmer, and we're both unemployable.

100%. 100%. Opening question. Is real estate for absolutely everybody?

In my humble opinion, yes. I think that this is the vehicle that is the single most proven asset class in the world. Right. And Maslow's hierarchy of needs tells us you can live your entire life and never own a bitcoin, but you can't live a single day of your life without some shelter. So. So I think that there's lots of programs, lots of opportunities to get into real estate that really levels the playing field.

I can't imagine that you were just swimming in cash when you started in real estate. Can you tell us a little bit about how you got your start and maybe inform people? There's people out there right now, young people who are in their 20s and 30s. And I'm looking at my kids. I have three kids in their 20s and right down from the farm where I raised them. It's starter homes in the seven fifties. You know, that. That. That doesn't seem to go together. How did you get your start in real estate? And what are some strategies that people in their 20s and 30s today could do?

The story that you talked about at the jump was the thing that got me interested in real estate. A friend's dad bought that house and she rented out the rooms to our friends. And I thought, oh my. And you get to keep this money. That's the best idea I've heard in my life. But I was interested. That was 1999. And then I listened to all the podcasts, I read all the books. I did nothing with that knowledge until about, you know, I bought my own place to live in Chicago, which I wanted to live in the cool neighborhood of Chicago. And that meant, you know, minimum. In 2008, it meant like a minimum of, you know, three, $400,000. If I wouldn't have been so interested in being cool and I would have gone to a different neighborhood and bought a 4 Plex and rented out the rest. That is the thing that I think is the, you know, one of the regrets in my life. I wish I would have done that. And actually, funny story, we, my husband and I just got back from vacation. Every time I'm on vacation, I talk to as many 20 year olds as I can and, you know, preach the gospel of the fourplex because you can buy them for three and a half percent down and then within a year's time, you end up with these rentals that pay for a portion of your lifestyle. I think that's the single best way to get started, but it's not the one that I took advantage of because I was too worried about being cool.

Now, are those opportunities readily available today? I know there's so many people that have gone through masterminds and groups and they have strategies and the homevestor strategy of making lots of offers on properties. It just seems like homes are picked out like it's, it seems very competitive to get a good deal. And I also know people that buy things on the courthouse steps or have bought things on the courthouse steps that have gone to foreclosure and you go there and you bid on these things and I sometimes sight unseen. So there's all kinds of strategies. It seems like it's a hustle game.

There's a little hustle to it. I, I think end of the day, the, the more you trust your own judgment, the more that you've looked at a bunch of different reps of things, the more you're going to know when a deal is a deal. The joke that I make is I'm a mom of three. I go to Costco a lot. I know that toilet paper is normally $25, so when it hits $20, I know that's a really good sale and I need to buy all the toilet paper. So the thing that I really think 20 year olds should be doing is just looking at property after property after property to understand what on sale looks like. And easy ways to do that are just going to Zillow and making sure it hit inbox for the type of property you want to buy.

One of the programs that I looked at talked about that you should, you shouldn't have to go outside your normal travel path to buy your real estate and your rental properties because that way you can get access to them. How do you think about proximity when you look at and, and I know you've bought, you have 370 something doors last I saw. I don't know if you've sold or acquired more, but you know, pushing 400 doors so you've got multi family, I'm assuming apartments, things like that. Those don't necessarily have to be in your neighborhood because there's professional management that can run those things for you. But like generally in, as people drive around from home to work or home to parents or home to kids, sports, they're passing deals every day. And if they become familiar with theirs, with those neighborhoods, they'll know what deals look like when they pop up.

I totally believe that in most cases. But you know, being in the city of Chicago, being in California, being in a lot of like major metros, things don't work there the way they work in other markets. So you know, I would encourage people to look at their backyard as, you know, a couple hours away. The, the first thing that I ever bought with express purpose of being an investment was a four plex at Illinois State University which was like two and a two, two and a half hours from where I live. But I could buy a much cheaper thing with much more potential for upside if I was willing to kind of let go of the reins a little. And yes, you do have to trust and you know, find professional management to help you handle things. But if you're working full time, that's a benefit anyway.

Was that student housing?

It was, yeah. I accidentally stumbled into that and it's the idea of getting into something that you can make at its highest and best use was really game changing for me and an accidental happy accident actually. I learned that these unfurnished rentals could go for 400 ish dollars a month when I bought that. But if you bought the bed and the desk, you could get almost 800 bucks. So you know, looking for deals to help you get that increased Cash flow is really the thing that I bang tables over.

Yeah. And I appreciate the happy accident reference based on the painter who used to paint with the Afro. Who was that? You know what I'm talking about?

Oh, yeah, Bob Ross.

Yeah, thanks. Very seldom do we get a Bob Ross reference here. So hats off. Obviously PBS coming out of Chicago, that's where he was. Great documentary. If you haven't seen Full circle people. Full circle. Here we go. And by the way, I grew up in Schaumburg.

Oh, no kidding. I didn't do that.

Schaumburg High 86.

How about that? I'm southwest suburbs now. It was cheaper to live down here than the western suburbs. So when I wanted to leave my W2, I made the migration down.

How do you sort out the benefits of immediate cash flow versus future appreciation? And you know, when you're making an investment, like, how do you balance those two? Because obviously, like I've, I've invested in a lot of real estate and I'll share some of that probably as we talk. But I, I started investing and I bought an owner financed home when I was in college. And I was, yeah, I was, I was running a painting business. I was playing college football as a down at Appalachian State University. I was a D1 college football player. Started the painting business the summer we pressure washed in a frame house that was all the way on top of a mountain and it was an elderly couple and it was their second home. And we pressure washed the cedar shakes and they said, hey, we're getting, we're looking to sell this. Can we, Would you guys like, are you interested in buying it? And I'm like, well, I don't have any money. They said, well, we can finance the down payment for you and finance the whole thing for you. So I was a homeowner when I was. And I don't know how old I was there, maybe 20, 21 years old. Then my brother came out to college. He lived in the house, he rented the other two bedrooms and he lived rent free. And I had the benefit of full coverage of my rent, of my lease or my mortgage payment and everything. So that was exactly what I did. And I stumbled into it early. But even, you know, in my early business career, I could see that it was a good deal.

How lucky, you know.

Yeah.

How lucky that these people took this bet on you. But it was your hustle showing up that helped you get found.

Yeah, they said, they said, you know, we'll put you in this home and you won't make a payment. Until next summer. I'm like, how did they know that now? Just kidding. Anyway, no, but, so, but I was looking at that mainly from an appreciation perspective because there wasn't a lot of coverage. But ultimately I owned that house for over 20 years and as the rents went up, I mean I ended up, you know, I think my payment was gosh, $387 or something to them and I think I ended up getting about twelve hundred dollars a month for it by the time amazing. I sold it. So, so it was a great, it was just great. And you know, I, I parlayed that into, you know, buildings and stuff. Every. Basically I was an accidental real estate investor. So as I moved through Florida I ended up with some properties and some buildings down there. And then I moved up here and I bought every office we were in. Then we moved to the next one. I would rent out that office and you know, built, built some homes and I would keep them and rent them. So I just ended up with an accidental portfolio. But as I was working in Hurricane Andrew in 1992 and the coast, they had these high rise mid rise condos that were devastated and they wanted to take their insurance money and run. So I could have bought as many oceanfront condos as I wanted for between fifty and a hundred thousand dollars that needed some repairs. But those things are probably a million and a half dollars now or 2 million bucks. I mean some of these were, some of these were like two bedrooms. But like I imagine like they're, they're all worth a lot of money now. I mean if, if I would have taken five years at that point in time and said I'm not going to build this company that I ended up building and selling some 25 years later, I'm going to invest in that. I could have probably ended and banks were lending on anything. Yeah, I mean like literally they're like bring in your pay, you need a face and a pay stub and you would get a mortgage. And I mean like I, that's how I bought all of this stuff as I went. I mean you, I had one banker at bank of America and then I ended up using some outside mortgage brokers. But I mean it was definitely in that time where they were giving it away. But I, but I knew not to overpay for things and I, and it wasn't beyond my means. So I could have probably ended up with 50 of those thinking condos if I would have just thought about it and, but, but I mean those opportunities. So as I'm, if I'm a 20 to 30 year old person right now. Would you be thinking, how would you balance the thoughts around cash flow and around appreciation? And how would you, you know, how would, how would you be thinking about, while things are really expensive now, is there really any more appreciation to get?

Sure. So cash flow versus appreciation, end of day, I like to optimize for cash flow because the way that I bought myself out of my W2, I was in medical sales for the bulk of my career, which is a pretty, you know, solid job, pretty high earning job. And I was able to get out of it because I built this floor of income is how I refer to it, of cash flow that's coming in. And then I didn't do anything to sell any properties that were feeding this floor of income. And then I didn't do anything that was for appreciation until after I had built the floor of income that I needed to leave my W2 comfortably. So the way I look at it is yes, it totally matters appreciation. And yes, you know, the government has a goal of inflation, right. So I think appreciation is absolutely going to have to keep going because it only helps our government out of the jam they're in for all these promises they've made if they do inflate in a really high way. So I, my master's degree is in economics, so I geek over this, geek out over it a little bit. But end of day that we can either have our politicians say that they're going to tax a lot more, that they're going to take away grandma's Medicare or, or they're going to just inflate away so that the dollar they promised Grandma feels like 20%. The third option, that inflation option is the thing that's going to not have any political backburn. Right. So I think inflation is here to stay in a bigger way than the 2%. That's, that's the goal. So I think you're, you're hedged with inflation if you get in and appreciation will happen.

Why do people say real estate is a hedge against inflation?

So whenever what inflation means basically is that whatever dollar you have in the bank is going to feel like less over time. Right. If you have something that is a hard asset, something that you're renting out, that rent you're going to charge is going to go up over time. So the value of the property is going to go up over time kind of in lockstep with inflation. So also if you're locking in your primary payments on long term debt, that is your largest Spend of the entire project and you're going to have inflation on top of it. The amount of money you're making over time is going to exponentially grow because you're locked in at wherever you're locked in in terms of debt payment.

Right. Do businesses perform in the same way? Because we own a business, as we get inflationary conditions, we charge more. Things cost more, so we get to charge more. Sometimes a business will pay for a fixed asset like vehicles, equipment, or a piece of real estate. All of the real estate that I had, a lot of the real estate that I had was business use. I rented it to myself. We rented it to the, you know, bought it in one company, rented it to the other company, and, you know, we had a, we had a tenant there. And then of course, there's the advantages of taking advantage of the tax code. So you get. Yeah, in a, in a commercial property, you can do accelerated depreciation. So you can do a cost segregation study where you can say, all right, and I, you know, without. This is not a real estate podcast. Right. But you can basically say you can, you can depreciate different aspects of a building at different rates to the extent it hasn't been done before. So, like, the carpet's going to accelerate faster than the bricks and things like that. So you get to move a lot of the depreciation forward and you get to take a bigger discount up front. You'll have to recover it later. But like, for me, I'm a holder, man. Like, I hold, you know, the mind. Somebody else can deal with that after I'm dead, you know, as long, you know, and, you know, they can, they can do whatever they do with it. So whether it's taking advantage of the tax code, taking advantage of increasing prices versus your fixed costs, businesses and real estate are both hedges against inflation. And as opposed to just holding a dollar or even having a W2 job to where, honestly, I don't know that wages can possibly move up with inflation.

I mean, 3% raise won't keep you up with inflation. You know, it just doesn't happen. And I think too, that the idea of security of a job, Jobs aren't secure. The only way that you are secure is if you're, if you built something of your own that you can always depend on. That was a big reason that I looked to build that floor of income.

There are statistics right now where people that are above 50 years old are getting ready to transfer great amounts of wealth to the next generation or to start doing planning as to what to do with that money. How would you advise people in their 50s and 60s who might only have a horizon of, say, let's just go with the average is 15 to 25 years. Would they invest differently than a 20 to 30 year old in real estate, in your opinion? How would you advise them differently?

I absolutely think you, you need to optimize differently. With time on your side, you can make more mistakes, right? So you almost need to be more careful if you're in your 50s and 60s. And yeah, you're totally right. The silver tsunami, she's a coming, you know, the, the wealth exchange of business sales, the BO business sales on top of even just this real estate stuff is a really interesting topic to me too. But if you are, you know, 50, 60 years old, you only have 15 years left, you, you absolutely can take dollars that you've got and lock them into something that's a hard asset to build and optimize for a floor of income. So one thing that, you know, when I get a chance to work with people, the first thing that I have them do is really do the math. Like you might have an idea of how much, you know, passive income you want, but have you actually put pen to paper to see what you would need for your life? And I couldn't find anything that helped me figure that out. So I built a little spreadsheet that I'll make sure that I share for the show notes. But end of day, I have been everybody that I've helped out with this, 90% of people that I've helped out with this is surprised that the number is much lower in terms of what they need for not only their daily life today, but also the life of their dreams. Because if you want to live this life of your dreams, like I want a JET membership, I don't necessarily want to own the jet, but I want to be a member of a JET membership. There's a price tag that you can look up to, see what it's going to cost you on a monthly basis to live this life of your dreams. And if you just optimize towards that figure, things become really more crystallized. They seem way more attainable.

Real estate requires a certain amount of discipline. I mean, at the end of the day, it is about managing those expenses and making sure that, you know, your, your cap rate, your, your return on your investment, your return on your rents, you know, your cash flow is absolutely maximized. How do you, you know, in terms of, you know, assets that you'd stay away from in real estate? I Mean every. Oh, hey, there's a house, you know how many, I can't tell you how many times I've known somebody in the. The house next door is coming up for sale. Should I buy it and rent it? Well, let me tell you, you live on a golf course, you've got this, you know, but it's not the biggest house on the street. You know, maybe 10 years ago you could get that house for $600,000. And it's got taxes, it's got hoa, it's got upkeep, it's got a high roof, it's all cut up, it's got all these nice shrubberies. You got to do all the grass and all like, and all this stuff. And I'm like, you know what you're going to have to like, you know what you're going to have to bring in and rent to actually make that worth it. And then you, and then they're, and then they never account for their vacancy percentage. They think it's going to be rented forever. So, you know, I, you know, what are some of the asset classes in real estate that you think today in the climate that we're in that you'd be a little bit more cautious with? Obviously an over expensive home, single family home is probably, you know, many doors versus one doors is always going to be a better equation for an investor. But what about commercial real estate today? Do you have an opinion on that? I mean we're at about a 40% vacancy rate in office buildings right now in this country.

Yeah, exactly what I was going to call towards. I think that all of this is just a math problem. You know, it's just money coming in and money going out and if you can understand what's going to come in reasonably and what's going to go out reasonably and there's some level of delta there. You can feel pretty safe buying something. But you know, the world has changed in terms of how we work. You know, these office buildings I think will continue to be vacant. There's been a lot of talk of, you know, changing these office buildings into apartment buildings. But sometimes the plumbing is an issue, the number of windows is an issue. Um, I, I am a fan of the most boring possible thing that's available. Right. Like I think that apartment buildings where.

You know, I, Is that how you found your husband?

Actually he's lovely and very boring and he would agree with that.

You know, fair enough.

But end of day that these apartment buildings, Maslow's hierarchy of needs, the quote, the question that I try to solve for is will someone want to live there in 30? The first thing that I think you need to do if you're going to start investing in real estate is decide if somebody's going to want to rent that thing in 30 years. Another asset class that gives me pause is storage and you know, unpopular opinion. I love that there's no toilets and I love that there's no, you know, one on one tenant stuff. But you know, if I look at the kids in my family, the kids that I coach, the kids that I know that are, you know, 20 somethings, they don't. We got a lot of crap, Jeff. The people older than us got a lot of crap. But the people who are in their 20s, they own like three forks and like one mug, you know, so I don't think in 30 years the level of demand for storing extra garbage is going to be as strong. So I choose to stay A, where I think people will need to be like they need a place to live and B, I think that the loans, I know that the loans that you can get on apartment buildings are so incentivized by the government that it's the best possible lending that you can get, in my opinion.

What are those areas that, where they were giving areas incentives like 10 year, you know what I'm talking. Opportunity zones. Are opportunity zones still a thing?

They are still a thing. That was a big Trump thing and actually you were talking about cost seg earlier. 100% bonus depreciation has come back with the big beautiful bill. So love it or hate it, just know the game you're playing. Right? So and end of day, the, the opportunity zones in my opinion are very much a developer play or for someone with a ton of gain in a stock market. So I'm, I'm not a tax advisor by any means, but I did buy something in an opportunity zone and one was unable to take advantage of it because I didn't put as much money into the property as I paid for the property.

Got it.

Which is kind of the developer play.

Yeah, our listeners are business owners. Of course, we build franchise brands so we have a lot of first time business owners. How soon would you advise somebody if they needed a shop or they needed a office warehouse space? You know, the moment that I got into business with my painting business, I was a property owner. Within six months of doing that from the opera, I just came across it. It seemed to make sense. I needed somewhere to live. My brother was coming out, he needed somewhere to live. It was cheaper than rent or it actually was on par with rent, I think, I think it was 400 bucks apartment rent at the time here in 1989, 1990. And this, the mortgage was owner finance. There was no qualification to it. And I didn't understand the tax write offs. I didn't understand that. I also didn't understand all the maintenance. I also didn't understand that I should have had the water tested before I got in there. They did, those crafty, those crafty guys, they did slip me a bit of a water problem with the property. So maybe they knew it wouldn't pass inspection. So I had to have the well re headed and sanitized and all that kind of thing. And you know, I only have occasional gesticular problems from it, but the, you know, it was, it was a great thing. And then, but everywhere I went in Florida, we bought a historic home that was an office and had a yard in it. Then we ended up with a, you know, three bays of a big commercial facility. And now, I mean I just, everywhere I went, every office we moved into, I bought the building and we moved into that building and I ended up with, I don't know, a dozen pieces of properties probably over, over time, which with the appreciation that's happened, I mean it's, it's probably for the small amount of time. There's nothing I've done in my life, including building businesses, including building Homefront brands, that has given me the return on time that real estate has. I mean it's literally, it is, it was literally apply for a loan, have the inspections, hire a good realtor, they handle everything. If you can write the down payment, you can qualify for the loan. You're moving into this building. It took me hours, not years, not months of slaving away. It literally took me hours to buy this property and probably has been. I mean it's not the most money I've made, but it's certainly, if I did it on the dollars per hour, it, it would be at the top of the list.

The wealthiest people I know, Jeff, are the business owners that buy the real estate as they go. The dentist, the H Vac guy, you know, like those are the people that is the path, right? I do think that, you know, real estate is a slow burn, but the, you're totally right. The return on time, the return on brain space is definitely there. And the goal of the, the way I look at my life is my, my husband gets to retire in 10 years. 11 years, right? I have 11 years left of, left of hustle. And then I want to be able to throttle back. Right. So I am optimizing for where I want to be in 11 years. And these larger apartment buildings that I own, I get a dashboard email, we've created a dashboard with the property manager. I get one of those every Monday to my inbox and then we have a 30 minute call a month. So I'm optimizing for the life that I want to live. But in order to get there, you kind of need a pile of cash. The way that I look at that is if you set up an apartment building, it pays you every single month forever. But if you're a business owner, you know, you have to, you know, set up the system and hire the person. Or if you're a W2 worker, you can only exchange that hour for money one time. If you're a realtor, you can only sell that house one time. So I will do one time money things, but for express purpose of setting up something that's forever money. So if you are a business owner, you're in this, you know, king, kingpin spot where you have the heavy cash flow to be able to take some chips off the table and put it into something that's going to pay you forever.

Yeah. So you, you are not a house flipper or a property flipper.

You know, I have and I will, and I can't say that I won't ever do that again. But that's a one time money activity. You know, I'm, I'm not going to eat the proceeds of a one time money activity. I'm going to use that to go buy something that will pay me forever.

Before we, we leave the real estate realm and move over to probably some more, I don't know, emotional, fun, motivational type things. The other side of Mandy, what's the impact that AI has had in the real estate business? And do you see, I mean, of course. Okay, you've got to think about it in a couple of ways. How is AI going to impact the overall population and their ability to pay rent? Number one, like, you know, what's, what do you see in terms of tenant trends? What do you see in terms of rent trends? Of course, technology through Covid led to more migration, more remote work. So people could maybe wanted to have a nicer place because they were staying in their home all day. So maybe there were some trends around an extra room or an extra whatever that people wanted to want it to be in. But like just generally in terms of managing real estate, acquiring real estate, real estate transaction fees, I mean Are there areas of real estate that are going to get disintermediated by AI? Is there anything interesting that you're keeping an eye on as you look to build your next 10 years of assets?

I think AI is definitely here to stay. So to figure out how to harness it and to use it as a thought partner, to use it in the right way to continue to replace things that are kind of rote activities. We're using it a lot.

I just hope it lets us stay.

Yeah, right. The robots are going to take over.

Yeah, I'm building. I know you're not doing storage, but I am building an entire complex of robot charging stations so they can just come in and just charge themselves and then go out and take over the world.

Wow. Very cool.

That is not true.

We're leaning.

That's not true at all. But if you think about it. Okay, I'm sorry I interrupted you and I apologize for that. But if you. But. So I'm an owner of the largest parking management valet company in the country. One of the owners, I invested in it six years ago. It was an early acquisition and we were like the 13th in the country. And now we're like, number one. We've done by acquisition. And so when Covid hit that day, we had to lay off 5,000 workers, which was not good. But, you know, so as we're talking with our board about, okay, well, what's going to happen with robotic. What's going to happen with the Waymos, what's going to happen with the autonomous cars? Because, you know, are you going to need valets and parking lots if people are. If nobody's going to be allowed to drive in the future? Right. And they said that's what we're building towards because those cars are all going to need a place to park at night.

And I'm like, that's the same premise of will someone want this in 30 years? I think it's a brilliant way to look at our lifespan and to prepare for our legacies in a big way. I'm sorry.

If you can get to where you are.

I mean, listen, this conversation is great. For my add, we're leaning heavily into AI for customer service, for, you know, these. The types of questions that are asked time and time again. But you want to feel like there's some level of instant, not just FAQ list in terms of types of assets that are. That I'm leaning more heavily into. I subscribe very much into, you know, playing towards the middle play that I like, the safe play. I like the conservative play. I don't necessarily love a class, say the most beautiful, you know, luxury item or place because that will be the place that gets hardest hit with any sort of economic downturn. Right. So I love a class B property and I continue to lean into that because it's got fewer problems than the class C or D. But it's also something that doesn't get as hit if jobs are a problem. And you know, I don't necessarily trust the way Illinois does business. I had someone live in one of my properties. It was a. One of the first things I ever did, a single family home, but that I still owned after many years. She didn't pay me for 26 months. 26 months of that woman not paying me. And I, you know, long story short, bulk of it was because she was playing the game and Illinois kind of set her up to get to play that game. So I now do business in states that do a better business. So the bulk of my acquisitions since then have been in Indiana. And I think that, you know, jobs and, you know, where people will want to live and continue to want to live in 30 years will be driven by how well a state does business. And I think a lot of that, you know, if, if you're, you know, one side of the border versus the other, Indiana into Illinois, it becomes a lot easier to do business. So. So I'm leaning into that.

Yeah, makes a lot of sense. Mandy, you're a partner and a leader in gobundance women. What is that?

Yes, sir. We are the tribe of healthy, wealthy, generous women who choose to lead lives. We're a group of women who are business owners and want more ands in our life. As my partner yor and our collective friend Kelly Rosendez always says that we want to scale, but we don't want to sacrifice with that scale. I want a billion dollar business, but I also want to be the mom who volunteers at my kids school. So we come together and leverage each other's resources to go further faster.

Is there natural conflict in that role?

You know, it's not without it. And sometimes the, you know, to be the mediator of some stuff like I, you know, I solve all my own problems like I don't need to solve anybody else's sometimes, but it is the, the good outweighs the bad in so many different ways. The, the chance to be a small bit in the reason why someone found success or went further than she thought she could or was brave enough. Something in Spain, you know, that those are the things that really Give me life.

Yeah. So what's a typical member of the group look like? Business owner.

Business owner. Well, we do have a heavy exposure into real estate, business owner or not, but she is an accredited investor because the types of problems that you are presented with as an accredited investor, that means net worth of a million dollars or earnings of 200,000 or more. She's interested in squeezing the juice out of all the stuff that feels important and has realized that financial freedom, yes, it matters, but there's so much more out there that I really want to optimize and work on. And most of the time we are women who have been leaders in male dominated organizations or industries and felt very alone. And the opportunity to see hundreds of other women optimizing in the same way, just to be seen and heard and felt, that's what we're all seeking in life, I think.

So is it an education business and does it provide specific services for people that are facing some of the same challenges?

We consider ourselves a mastermind, which it's not really necessarily like didactic, but we do get together in smaller groups to discuss types of plays that we're doing. So if you're a CEO, you want to get together with those CEOs. If you need deal flow as a passive investor in things, we have a group that gets together to discuss that. We basically provide lots of spaces for things to happen and tools for you to get together and make it happen.

Okay. So it has a definite economic, transactional, business bent to it.

Oh yeah, there's definitely. We work really hard to make sure that women can see a return on their investment. Lots of times you sign up for something like this or what we're seeing from the data that we collect is people sign up for one reason, thinking they want business roi, you know, but what they really needed was connection. What they really needed was to not feel alone. So we work to provide both.

Yeah, I've been a longtime member of YPO and we have a forum and you know, there, there is a. Well, number one, highly confidential.

Yes.

And I'm not sure what this translates to. Gobundance. But, but YPO is highly confidential. There is a qualification. To get in, you have to recertify. Either three or six years, I don't recall. But you've got to recertify to get in. Meaning you've got to have a certain position or be running a certain size business. And there's really kind of a no solicitation. So when we have an event, it's supposed to be high end. It's supposed to touch all five senses. So you're supposed to bring in just, just an incredible hard to get resource to talk that you're like, wow, we're around this person. It's usually generally kind of a small group. I mean, I think most YPO chapters are average around 60 to 80 people. I mean sure, there's some big ones with like 400 people, but they're generally pretty small. Small enough to where you can know everybody. And then really there's events that you go on throughout the year that are at unique places you might go to, you know, get a tour of the Biltmore and then you have a meeting and with resources and then if you have a forum which is usually six to eight people and that you go through kind of life with and that's like the super, super, super confidential. Like you know, where all the bodies are buried and you know, where all of that. So and I, and I like the format and you know, I'm, I'm, I'm building my own community called Friend Mastery. And really it is, and it's really, it's going to be invite, invite only and you have to really pass a pretty stringent membership application. And aspirationally, you know, in our industry there's just so much monetization and there is so much misinformation and really I just want it to be a place of, of absolute truth, a place of confidentiality and a place of no solicitation. Like, you know, like they, these people need to know that I will never monetize them and that so that when I, they, when they get information that it will always be based on what's in their best interest and not that I'm trying to give them a vendor that's going to give me back end or something like that because it just seems like maybe it's this industry because I'm in it, but maybe all industries operate that way. Like, I don't know what, how does gobundance think about like that piece of it?

Well, once you've seen how the sausage is made from other stuff, like I was part of, I was part of other organizations that felt there was an ick factor and they just run to the back of the room and pay us. But wait, there's more like that feeling like that we do not subscribe to that in any way. And you know, we, we have things in place that yeah, we absolutely want to do deals with our girls. Yes, we do. And we want to grow together and you know, invest together. But the purpose for you joining is not to show up and like, like fill up your subscription to your syndication. We are very clear about that from the beginning and we have steps in place to make sure that you've been a member long enough before you can even present something, you know, so I, I completely agree and have experienced ick factor in other stuff and we, we shut that down really, really quickly. We've actually had circumstances where we've needed to say, you know, hey, this is not a match. You know, here's the, a prorated amount of your dues. We wish you the best.

Yeah. What's interesting. So the investment that I talked about in the parking management business came through one of my forum mates who's become one of my best friends in ypo. And it was only after years of being in forum together and knowing everything about everything that was going on in our personal lives and family knives and our struggle and this is a, a relatively high profile individual and the struggles that people face when they're in the public light are, you know, different. I mean they're very different and you know, they can't have social, you know, I mean it's, it's interesting but like that's an opportunity that's ended up being real good. So at the end of the day it was a commercialized relationship, but only as a secondary thing. Only after you've built the trust. It's not, not, you know, hey, you know, we, we're having a speaker this morning and then in the back of the room you can sign up and you know, get the book and sign up for the class and all of that kind of stuff. So I mean it's, but you have to pay for these events and you know, there's a balance because the, the, the, the groups that do it the most are the ones that charge the most. They do it the best are the ones that charge the most because they don't need to monetize. But you know, it's cheaper for the members if they'll let sponsors come in. So, and friend mastery, I've, I've taken a pretty hard position on it. You know, I'm charging a pretty penny for these franchisors and you know, I, I think, you know, it's, it's almost going to be a evening and weekends thing for me because I have a day job building home front brands. I have responsibility to hundreds and hundreds of franchise owners out there and they get all of my attention and, but I, but I've shared with them and I'll, I'd Share with them if asked. Like you are at your very best when you're teaching somebody else. Like, if they want me to best be the best CEO of this franchise platform, then I need to keep my sword sharp. And when I'm. When I'm talking to emerging brands, like, I'm questioning myself and making sure that I'm doing things exactly right, am I practicing what I'm preaching? Am I really holding myself to the standards that I'm telling them they need to hold themselves standards too? I think it's, you know, teaching is an interesting way to just kind of raise your standards and make sure you're constantly leveling up and you're not in your own little echo chamber of Or. Or. Or you've lost some discipline in something or you forgotten.

I think it's important in all of this stuff, in all of the investing is. Is to learn to trust your own judgment, to. To be a person who thinks for themselves in every sense of the word and can trust their own judgment. And if you're teaching it, you basically are proving what you believe to be true. So I think that that matters a whole lot.

The name gobundance is interesting because I like the word go and I like the word abundance and I really like the branding there. So it seems like if you can teach people to wring out the very best of their economics, then they can have more freedom and choice as to what they do with their lives.

Life. That's exactly the play, right? We have these five pillars of a great life, and we work to set goals in every single one of those pillars. And then we kind of peer pressure each other to achieve them. So we, instead of a forum, we have a pod, which is where four to six women who, they know where all of my bodies are buried, all of the skeletons in the closet. And they don't just love me in spite of them, they love me because of them. And I feel so much more supported because I feel seen in that way. One thing too that we do is, you know, we know that on average, if a man earns a dollar, a woman owns 70 cents. That's just data that we know, right? But one reason that I think that women earn less is because we are not prepared to ask. So, you know, a question that I ask a lot, and we asked it on the end of our podcast that we did together, is, you know, what's an introduction or a resource that changes the ball game for you, and if you are not prepared with that answer, you're going to miss opportunities to be Making that ask. So if you're a woman listening out there, be prepared with an ask of something that would take you to the next level, because you really are only one introduction or one resource away from jet fuel being poured on whatever you're doing.

When did you realize the importance of a network?

When I saw, when in college, when I saw people that were less smart than me doing very interesting things or preparing to do very interesting things. You know, I. Everybody kind of had the same job where I grew up and I loved them and I love getting to see them, but getting the opportunity to go into the world and do things that felt really interesting to me. I knew that if I just got next to a person doing that thing, I can figure it out too.

With respect to your kids, how do you think about transparency in the things that you do? Economics, you know, you've got, I mean, it's very difficult time. My kids are 27, 24 and 21 right now, and thank God that they kind of got through before the social media boom or they were ground, you know, they were, they were grounded in flip phones. Okay. So it's like, all right, you know, they, you know, I remember, I mean, they used to get carpal tunnel syndrome just trying to text, text to pick up, pick them up, you know, because he had to hit the three like seven times to get to the letter and all of that. So, you know, they were, they, they didn't grow up in as necessarily, they were digital natives, but they didn't grow up as social media natives. And I think I was able to, you know, keep their habits. They didn't have a lot of their self esteem tied up in likes and things like that. But today it's, it's very challenging. And by the way, we are not immune to the addiction as business owners because I mean, you, you can doom scroll on TikTok just like the best of them. And so how do you, how do you think about, you know, as you, as you think about messaging to your kids, how do you think about business transparency? How important is it that you're training them to entrepreneurial, independent to accumulate, you know, the philosophies that you've earned through a lifetime of, you know, hard work and trials and tribulations. You know, how do you, how do you transfer those to them? Do you have any advice?

That's a great question. And a lot. We put a lot of thought into stuff like that in, in gobundance. These are open conversations in a real way. I am a second marriage, so I made a nine year old and I get to be bonus mom to a 12 year old boy and a 15 year old girl. And it's very interesting to see how you're looking at money, how you're looking at comparison to other people for a very long time. I've loved coaching volleyball of this 14, 15 year old age range because I especially love sports for girls to teach them that their body is worth more than being hot, especially at that age. And you know, the social media stuff, it's scary and you know, keeping the open communication is the most important thing in my opinion. So the 15 year old recently, you know, it's time for a first job. I had a second thing I ever bought was a sixplex of one bedrooms. We've slowly turned a lot of them into furnished rentals. And I had her come up with me and for a day and a half we, you know, worked our butts off getting furniture put together and you know, things set up for people to come rent. And I didn't put this together before I had asked her to do this, but my best friends in the world are the ones from college that we ran until we threw up. You know, when you do hard things with someone, when you're in the trenches with someone, that is naturally bonding. Right. And so being in this, working every minute of 36 to 48 hours, whatever we did, you know, that was very bonding and we had some real deep discussions that we wouldn't have had otherwise. So what are some hard work things that you can, A, be the person showing your kids what hard work looks like. B, show them an opportunity to learn, A, to earn a buttload of money by doing that hard work and then circumstances put together something where it can be, you know, open and bonding for the both of you. Because that amount of time and that hard of work will have things come up that might not otherwise.

Yeah. An early entrepreneurial experience, I feel strongly, is one of the greatest gifts that you can give your children.

Totally agree.

Yeah, yeah, totally agree. I see it. And they don't even know they're getting it. And my, my son's an engineering student. He's getting ready to start his third year at Virginia Tech. He's doing an, he got a great internship at a aerospace company and he showed up there and there was this like really, really hard job that nobody wanted to do because there was some manual labor to it and it was about some defects. And they, you know, I can't really say what they do, but they build some specialized parts and lots of them like Lots and lots and lots of these very specialized parts in the aerospace industry. And he's like, why don't I take that on as my summer project? And like if he, he's getting it done and he took it upon himself to take the hardest job because. And I asked him why he did it and he said, well, just because it needed to be done. Like, he didn't look at it as like, what they're paying me an hour. He didn't look at it as, oh, I want to be able to go and have coffee over here, coffee over there. He actually sat back and he's looking at this business saying, what's the most important thing we need to do? You know, like that's. So he's an entrepreneur. I mean, whether he knows it or not already because he thinks about that way. He helped us with the podcast as his internship last summer. We're glad he's gone, man. He wore us out. I mean, it jet. I mean like with the numbers and the metrics and do you guys even care at all? But at the end of the day, like he built, he's got that engineering mind, so he built scorecards and he's looking at the metrics and the door. You know, he was very analytical about it and you know, so. And he actually moved us forward a good bit. But, you know, so like taking your kids, whether it's, I mean, I remember my 8 year old, my 27 year old, he was 8, and we went on a big emergency water damage job at a hotel and he's working all weekend with me doing moisture maps on the walls, using a moisture meter and that kind of stuff. And like, you don't realize to the extent that those situations and those experiences are going to create a different level of thinking and a different level accountability in your young people. And it's so critically important that you provide those wherever you can.

Can.

So I think so. You know, for me, that early entrepreneurial experience, if you can, if you can find a way to give it to your kids and I talk to our franchise owners about that and you, you don't realize, not only for yourself, for your freedom, it's, and it's not the easiest thing you're going to do is run a business. But you know, the, the fulfillment and benefits that you get, whether it's the high class assets that, whether it's the hedge against inflation, whether it's the tax code, whether it's get the freedom to do the things you want when you want, but also the impact on your kids Watching you figure out how to sell, how to drive leads, how to close, how to worry about payroll, how to collect money, all of these things, you know, because they're going to be listening to you in the car. They're going to be listening, watching you do it. They're going to be watching you do things on a weekend when, you know, everybody else is sitting around the pool. But, but like, that is a. My dad had owned a business and I watched him do it. And although it wasn't terribly successful. Well, that's actually how. Exactly how I would describe it. It was terribly successful and, you know, but not. And, but I. What I saw was his habits and his commitment in doing it. So I think I just did it maybe a little bit better than he did. But so I think, you know, I'm always interested to know how business builders like you integrate those lessons into their family.

I think it's so important to teach kids to go do the hard thing. And what you were talking about your son choosing the hard thing. Do the hard thing because it's interesting. Do the hard thing because it needs to be done. You know, my dad is still a farmer. My mom owned a business growing up. And it was exactly what I saw. The you don't work until it's 5pm and then check out, you work until the project is done, until the sun goes down, until you can't work anymore. And now, you know, it's a thing that I hear a lot of women specifically talk about is, you know, the. I don't want to take time away from my kid and underwrite another deal. Well, you know, if you're planning your time outright, when you're in your time with your kid, you are in your time with your kid and you're really playing Lego those. And when you're, you're showing, when you're underwriting that deal, you're really showing your kid that mom's dreams are worth pursuing, that one day they will realize that their dreams are worth pursuing because you are leading by example. Because one thing I know for sure, Jeff, is that kids aren't necessarily going to do what you tell them to do. They're going to do what you show.

Them to do a hundred percent. And it's really about alignment. Somebody asked me not too long ago and I guess I was on a bit of a soapbox, but they said, do you have to work tomorrow? And I said, I don't think about it like that. I just wake up and I think about all the things that I get to do.

Yes, that language shift. Have to get to.

Yeah, have to get to. I mean, I like some of the people that I struggle with, they won't do the things that they don't want to do. And when you start making choices like that, I get to do the things that I have to do. It's not that I have to do the things because it's an interesting thing, but I don't feel like I go to work. I mean, I have an office. I prefer to work out of the home. So I go to an office regardless if it's a work from home day or not.

Not.

I'll be in here. And, you know, I just. I feel. I'm in my routine. I feel good. I've got my whiteboards, I get to work on projects, I get to get the, you know, the stuff done. We get to react. I mean, it's almost like you're playing around a golf. Business golf, right? You're just. You're trying to figure out how to play this shot. Oh, crap, I'm in. I'm in the woods. How am I going to get out of it with this deal and that kind of thing? And then at the end of the day, you're just trying to land it, you know, at the. At the 18th hole with a reasonable score and be able to, you know, live to fight another day. And if you do that over time and you're disciplined with it, then you're going to accumulate assets and you're going to accumulate wealth and you're going to have experiences with great people, like getting to talk to you here today. And it's just a life. It's a life of fulfillment worth living. Like, we're not. We don't get to be like, happy is fleeting. Happy is temporary. You know, when people say, I just want to be happy, I'm like, well, that's. That's, you know, then wait till dementia kicks in, because you'll be happy all the time, you know, but.

But it's progress that equals happiness. It's just figuring out how to make some progress on whatever thing that's interesting. And I think maybe us both having athletics backgrounds, it. I look at it like it's this fun game that I get to go play. And, you know, you talked about people choosing not to do the thing that they don't want to do. The way I look at it is I got to do this thing until I can pay someone to get it off my plate so that I don't have to do it anymore. So that's the fun game that I get to play.

Yes. And I make the distinction. I'm satisfied or fulfilled when I've accomplished something that's hard and accomplish something that's meaningful or accomplish something that like you have this 10 year plan and you've got to create that north star, you've got to speak that bold future into existence. Because then it's like now you've defined the game. This is the mountain that we're going to climb. This is what it's going to look like when we get there. If it's big enough, it'll be hard. And now we struggle against it. I think too much of anything will kill you. Too much water will kill you. You know, you need it every day. But like too much of it will kill you. Too much of anything and I think too much consumption of will, you know, will make you very unsatisfied. And you know, there's a balance there. So I think, you know, business ownership and entrepreneurship and certainly the things you're doing working with the women at Gobundance, you know, those are all worthy ideals. Those are worthy pursuits. And you know, I never grow as much as when I get in a room of people that are willing to challenge you.

Yes, yes. It's the iron sharpens iron. Right. Like I, I only have gone as far as I have because of the questions I've been asked and because of the, the thinking that I've done because of this pod, because of these women around me. So I, I'm incredibly grateful for, for that opportunity.

Mandy, I think we're going to, we're going to tug on the reins just to the left a little bit and we're going to nose this thing towards the barn. You have a horsey background, don't you?

I do as a matter of fact.

Okay, so what kind of horses did you have growing up?

We had quarter horses and so my dad showed quarter horses. So he made me show and I was terrible. But you know, I did come out best there.

What's your, what's your best barrel time?

Oh, I've never barrel raced. I, I've not. That's not been. I, I went all volleyball. Whenever I was told to play softball, I went volleyball. When I was told to show horses, I went volleyball. So it's.

Well, you're, you're tall for a quarter horse. You probably needed to go to like a saddle bread or a standard bread or something with your, you know, being as tall as you are. So. But anyway, we will, we will headed towards the barn and is there I've got a curveball and then a fastball for you. But before I do, is there anything else that you want to cover? Anything else you want to share with the audience today about real estate, about your mastermind, anything?

Sure. I think end of the day that there's lots of groups that can help you go further in whatever thing you're doing. If you can figure out what type of community is going to help you move the needle. Getting around people who are doing the type of thing that you want to do is the thing that's going to get you there. The idea of, you know, you are the combination of the five people you spend the most time around. The way I tell the kids that is, that's what normal starts to look like. You know, if you're around people every day that build a multi million dollar business that looks normal and you're probably going to do it. And for your kids, if you're around people that are vaping all the time, that will look normal and you'll probably try it. So just make sure you're choosing wisely.

Show me your friends, I will show you your future.

Exactly.

Yes, exactly. All right. And how can people get in touch with you?

Best way to find me is Instagram, the Mandy McAllister or my website, Mandy McAllister.com.

Okay, just look for the blue check mark. All right, Curveball.

Got it.

Gun to your head. Do you have a. Do you have a pet dog?

Oh, yes, Milo.

Okay. Somebody holding Milo out the window. They're going to let them go if you don't start a business in the next 30 days. And it can't be a business that you're currently in, but it's an opportunity from where you're sitting that you see in the marketplace a business that needs to exist. If you had to start a business in the next 30 days, what would it be?

I have had such struggles with bookkeeping and making my financials easy and predictable. And there are so many people in my little world of gobundance women that the keeping bookkeeping clean. I. I would lean very heavily into AI in bookkeeping.

Yeah, got it. Yeah. Perfect. Perfectly said. Okay, fastball right down the middle. Keep your hands inside. Yep. Keep your hands inside. Had an eye on the ball. Here it comes. If you had one sentence to make a difference in somebody's life, what would that be?

Whether you think you can or you think you can't, you're absolutely right. Totally stolen from Henry Ford. But I think that there's a lot of fear. I think that there's a lot of identity, that things need to stay how they are in a lot of people's heads. And if you just choose to believe that there are unlimited possibilities, you're going to surprise yourself.

Perfectly said. Mandy, thank you so much for being on today.

This was so much fun. Thank you. Jeff.

Jeff, 100%. This has been Mandy McAllister here with Jeff Duden, and we have been on the Unemployable podcast brought to you by Homefront Brands. Thank you for listening.