https://www.listennotes.com/e/fb867129c9114afeb61acc66934179dd

Hi, I'm Angela Duncan, host of Empower her money podcast. And you are listening to EA interviews.

EA interviews, episode 521, inspiration, transformation, success stories and the imperfect action round. Seven days a week, join Mario Ficcini for today's expert authority effect interview. Entrepreneurs, you know you need to be doing the right stuff with your money. There's no point in having business without making sure the profits are taken care of. You can talk about top line revenue, you can talk about all these different things, but it's not so much how you make, it's about how much you keep. And that's why I'm excited to have Angela Duncan on today's episode where she's going to be talking about how to be better with your finances, profit more and share some of her secrets. As a best selling author, multi millionaire and even selling multiple businesses, she's helped a whole lot of women and, and I'm just so excited to have her because there's not enough people talking about this, men or women. And she is focused on helping women, which I think is fantastic so we can raise up more powerful entrepreneurs. I'm going to bring her up right after we thank the sponsor. Every business needs a book, including yours. And that's why I'm launching my new book to help you regardless of where you think your current writing abilities are. Visit eapublishingmethodbook.com today to learn the seven steps to publish and promote your nonfiction, lead and profit generating business book in eight weeks. Once again, that's EA publishingmethodbook.com Here she is, ladies and gentlemen, the lovely Angela Duncan. Angela, how are you feeling today?

I'm doing amazing. Thank you so much for having me today.

Oh, it's my pleasure. I want to know what you know because you seem to have gotten most of it right. What's your secret? And how did you get started in this? Because I know you did not. I know I. Tell us about your background, where you really started and what made you want to change. Make this change.

Yeah. So I always start my story from very early on. I am a survivor of childhood abuse and poverty. Moved around more times than I can count, missed birthdays, Christmases, you name it. I've lived in parks and cars and other people's houses and, and I never learned about money growing up. So I really think that that piqued my curiosity that I had to figure out how to use this tool we call money so that I can never live that lifestyle again.

What age did you say enough is enough? And start developing your curiosity around it.

As soon as I could sign my lease legally at 18, moved out of that situation and, and knew that I had to go to school, I needed to learn more about money. And it took me five years to finish my college degree. So I was on that five year plan. But I did finish it. Had to work many, many jobs in order to pay for school. But it definitely, as soon as I could sign that lease, I was out and ready to learn.

What's your background for college? What's the degree in?

Finance.

Oh, no kidding. So you jumped into it right away. Did you think you were going to have a job in it or did you always have the entrepreneurial bug?

Oh, yeah, I believe it was the Boiler Room, that movie where they had all the guys on Wall street, you know, they had fancy cars and vacations and that was the lifestyle. I was going to move to New York and trade on the floor. So that's definitely why I chose finance. It wasn't where I ended up though.

I remember that movie. It's one of my favorites. So remember when he's like, well, I have my section, section seven, and then he kicks them out. Were you that aggressive from the get go?

Um, no. I mean, I did get my Series 7 license in 63 because I thought that maybe that would be the field I wanted to be in. But I was right. In the financial industry before the tech bubble burst. And what I learned from that is you can pursue all the education you want as a financial advisor, but you can't control the stock market. And as a kid, that didn't have much control of what happened to me in my childhood. This control thing I needed to have. So I moved on from that financial advisor role to my next career.

Which was what?

Real estate. And if anyone knows anything about the housing market. I got my license in 2007. What I learned is I'm great at getting into an industry right before I crash, which can be really good and really bad at the same time. I learned a lot. I had to work my butt off just to be successful in real estate. But then I started learning about real estate investing and I worked with a lot of investors and, and I found that that was much more my niche. And then the financial advising world and I stayed in real estate and have been investing ever since.

What take us through getting in 2007 and then everything that happened in 8. You said there was pros and cons to it. I think we can all think of a few cons. But what was the biggest benefit you received from it. Because not a lot of people, I realize even in, even in business. People in business have a higher, I'd say, risk tolerance. And if they're smart, they'll know that with every adversity lies a seed of equal and greater benefit. Napoleon Hill people. Outside of that, it's like flip a coin. But even in business, there's not enough people. I feel realizing everything can work in your favor. So what did work in your favor? Getting into something right before it changed.

Yeah. So people were saying, get your real estate license. Everyone can sell a house. It's super easy. Prices are going up, you'll make lots and lots of money. So got my real estate license right before the downturn. And what I learned during the downturn, especially because at the time I really didn't have money. So we had to learn how to market without spending money from open houses to going to banks to get their listings as there are many, many foreclosures in the Florida market. To cold calling, to doing Craigslist. Yes. Craigslist was super popular back then and we didn't have the technology where you can just auto post. So I got a lot of leads from Craigslist, but I really had to learn the real estate business. I had to become an expert. Otherwise I was going to be out of the business. Like many people I saw who were just not knowing how to market, how to capture leads, how to build relationships. And you had to put a lot of effort in order to be successful. So what I find in a trouble market like that is you truly learn the art and skill of sales and in that industry so that you can be successful. Because there wasn't a lot of business going around. So you really had to stand out as an expert in order to be successful in real estate at that time.

Yeah. And so many businesses have the lead game. You know, I know a lot of people killing it with the leads, but they can't close worth a darn. Or they have very few leads and they're closing a lot. So now they're going, well, how do I get more leads? And at every step there's all these different. You can get tripped up any way. What have you found works the best to have a constant lead flow and closing them.

Yeah. So this is a big reason why I teach women about money. Women, I feel, are very heart centered. We want to build community, we want.

To build, which is a great thing.

Yeah. Whereas you know, sometimes our male counterparts, they're very logical. They think with their brain. And so sometimes it can come across to the female as a little bit salesy. So from a women's perspective, I learned how to build relationships with people. I wanted them to trust me. And when someone trusts you, as you know, they're more likely to buy, they're more likely to turn to you, but also just to give as much free information as possible. The more information I give, the better I look as the expert. And then people learn to trust me and they're going to turn to me when they're ready to buy or sell that house.

How. How do you get the women to. Or how. What are you doing to educate them and the. The ways of being better with the money once they get it.

Yeah. So fast forward to today. That's more of what I do today. I work with women to talk about mindset. I truly believe until you have a mindset where you can deserve, like saying, I deserve to make more money, make more money or I deserve to have a successful business, until you can tell your brain and your heart that together, you're really not open to opportunities. And so the first thing I always talk about is, where did you grow up? What kind of thoughts were taught to you at a young age? Because whether or not you believe it, they're still there. And you're living your life through those childhood memories. And so when you can understand what does that look like and how do I change that? Then you start to really open up your mind and your heart to opportunities. But it really starts early on from your childhood and kind of unlearning some of that stuff we learned as a kid.

How do you tell your mind to change it?

Yeah, it's repetitive. It's just like anything else. It's a muscle that you have to train to think and act differently and realize. You know, for me, I still struggle with this. I used to have a very negative mindset, and so it's something that I have to work on every day. I have to remind myself that that's not the current version of me, that that was the, you know, the childhood version of me. And I understand where it comes from and why, but today I want to choose differently. So you have to make that choice and you have to practice that muscle every day until it just becomes more routine and you've kind of replaced that old memory with the new memory.

Tell me one of your secrets, do you. Are you using notes? Are you writing stuff on the mirrors? Is it self talk audios? And you got to be specific. You can't say yes, all of the above because I have a suspicion, since you're so ambitious, it's. It's a multitude of things, but what's the first one you started with?

Yeah, so it was in the beginning writing little notes to myself, and it had to be visual because if you don't see it and read it constantly, you're not going to internalize it. Today, it's more of journal writing. And the way that I start my day and the way that I end my day is super intentional because I want to control my mind, thoughts, and how I'm starting off the day and how I end the day so that throughout the day, you can't always control everything. But how I start and end, I definitely can, and I'm very protective of that time.

Is there any. Do you do the same thing in the journal in the morning as at night, or do you have a certain routine that you journal morning and then specific stuff for night?

Great question. In the morning, I am writing gratitude, and it can be silly. And I do this exercise with some of my clients. You know, we live in this abundant environment, and it might not feel like it all the time, but I have interviewed people on my podcast that literally had to walk five miles to get fresh water. You can turn on your tap and have water, right? So just finding the simple things in life to be grateful for, that's how I start my day. What am I grateful for? What are my goals right now? And just having a quiet mind. I don't grab my phone, I don't hop on social media. I definitely don't watch the news. But that's the way that I start my day. When I start my day with gratitude, I feel like I can just create positive impacts with other people. The way that I end my day. And definitely don't laugh at me, because this is just what I do. But I love to watch YouTube funny videos because I end my day laughing so that when I go to bed, I'm happy. That way I wake up happy. But I don't have Hulu, Netflix. I don't subscribe to anything. I still have the free version of YouTube and I just watch funny videos and then I go to bed happy. So I start off positive and I end my day happy.

I'm not going to laugh at all because I was going to make a joke for myself. Because when you were saying I start the day and end the day, and I was like, well, I definitely don't journal before bed. I was like, watching roast comedy stuff, and it's hilarious, but that is so cool. You do the same thing I do, the gratitude. Also, what I was gonna make a joke about was something pro the news. When you go, I don't watch the news. I was gonna say, well, then how do you know what's going on in the world? Because that's everyone's rebuttal. So I am curious. What do you, you know, how do you keep up with the stuff without letting the world just.

Yeah, people send me articles when they think it's important. You know, for example, I'm a big country music fan and it just got announced that Toby Keith passed away. I probably would not have known had someone not told me. I literally am pretty naive about what's going on in the world. So, you know, if there was a war coming to Florida, I wouldn't know about it unless someone told me as saying, like, hurricane season, I really don't know about hurricanes until people tell me. So people are more than willing to share the bad news that they're already watching. And so I don't have to go seek out. It just seems to come to me.

I am a big philosopher of that too. If it's important enough until five or ten people are talking about, it's probably not that big of a deal.

Right, Right. And with the exception of real estate, I do a lot of real estate studying because I want to know what the markets are doing, but I don't necessarily consider that news. I consider that more statistics, and that's what I'm looking for when I seek out that information.

So as far as the real estate, are you focused more now on residential, commercial, what's your preference now?

I focus on being a passive investor in storage units and apartment buildings. So I do a lot of studying within those two industries. And I like the passive investor because I don't have to put in the work and I'm not responsible for people's money. When you are on the. When you're the one that's doing the syndication, you know, finding the apartments, gathering investors together, putting that whole project together, I just don't want that responsibility. So I choose to be passive because I feel like I'm knowledgeable enough about the industry to know what I'm getting into. But I don't want to have to be the actively manager of those properties.

Tell me more about this. Would do you prefer the storage units or the apartments?

Depends on the area. I think Americans love stuff, myself included. I'm a big shoes person, so I definitely have more shoes than number of feet that I have by far. So people in the Us, they just keep accumulating stuff. And so I think storage units are not going to go away, especially as some of the cities are expanding, but they're also making smaller units for us to live in. And then when your parents pass away, you're throwing that into storage, so. So I'm about 75% apartments and 25% storage units.

Okay. How many pair of shoes do you have?

Oh, I definitely. I'm not disclosing that one.

I know it's more than two because you said your feet, but yeah, yeah.

If you watch my Instagram at all, I am the shoe person, so I probably have like a hundred pairs, to be honest.

Oh, that's it. Should get one for every day. Can't repeat them every year.

Yeah, it's not in my budget. I keep a very strict budget and I only allow so much in my shoe budget. So maybe in a couple years when the podcast really takes off, but for now, I keep it very tight in the budget.

I appreciate the honesty. I was somewhat joking, but I honestly want to go here because. Tell me about your history of how you helped people that used to work for you.

Yeah, so I used to be a Financial Peace University coach with the Dave Ramsey program. I think for a lot of Americans, especially those that struggle with debt, his program is simple. It's easy to follow, it's easy to teach. And when you keep money basic and manageable the way that he has laid out his program, more people are going to join in and finish the program. So for me, I wanted to teach people, especially when I owned a ReMax office, um, real estate agents were terrible at budgeting. They would get a check, they'd go spend it, they might not get another check for 45 or 60 days. And then they had to do this thing called taxes. They just didn't know what to do. So when I was teaching Financial Peace University, I was having them look at what their expenses are, figuring out what the rolling 12 income look like so that we can put a proper budget, and then when they got more money, how to put money away to invest it for the future so that they didn't have that issue later on. And also to be able to pay taxes and not come to me asking me for money.

Do you think that lack of budgeting and poor finances is indicative to real estate, or do you think this is just an American thing?

Oh, it's definitely an American thing. There's a website, debt clock.org and what it shows is real time numbers for our credit card debt in the US and it's just crazy. It's something that we can manage. It's something, if we were taught, we could definitely wipe that out. But it's unfortunate because so many people just don't understand how interest rates and how credit card companies really make their money by charging you 30%. So when you're thinking about buying those shoes, think about, would you pay double for it? Probably not. So learn how to control the debt. And that's probably the biggest issue that.

I see in the US So I wasn't. Thank you for that. And I wasn't totally joking about the shoes, because what I found, when we're working with authors, I'm like, put a real story in your book. You know, it's not a plain word, storybook. But maybe we can do something with that. Some meme. But when you said, I probably have 100 pair of shoes, it's not in my budget. I think you could afford it. You just don't want to because you realize it's a liability more than an asset. And you're keeping your budget. Correct.

Yeah. One of my quotes is shoes are not an investment, but diamonds are. And so to my jewelry lovers, you know, thinking about jewelry as a collectible item and as an investment piece of your portfolio can be fun to do, but shoes definitely are just, you know, flushing money down the toilet. But it's fun.

Since you're talking about jewelry and diamonds, what about gold? And I don't mean just rings and stuff to wear, but like bullion.

Yeah. So I follow the currency market. You can see behind me here. I am a currency collector, so I don't specifically follow gold, but I follow the currency market, especially older US Currency. I always say, if you're going to invest in something, you can tuck away 5% of your investment portfolio and have fun with it. Find something that interests you, that you're going to study, but make sure you become a student first because you don't want to invest in something that you don't understand. I don't invest in crypto. I haven't spent the time to figure that out. NFTs don't really understand that either. So I don't invest there. But real estate makes sense to me. So that's where my investments are. But have some fun with your investments, too. Otherwise, you know, what's the point of working as hard as we do if you're not having fun with some of the investments that you're looking at? I also invest in whiskey. By the way, we had this offline conversation when I First started my podcast and I first started doing lives. I literally would take a shot of whiskey before I went live because I needed to calm my nerves. At least that's what I was telling myself.

You're great on camera, though.

Well, it takes a little practice. But, you know, I own whiskey barrels in Ireland, so that was like, if I'm going to have this as a hobby, then I might as well learn about investing in it too.

No kidding. That is so cool. The shoes, when you say it's the budget, because this is something someone can relate to, maybe the whiskey also in these other things. And I love these examples because I think there's so many people that just talk high level stuff. You know, I try not to do it when I'm talking about publishing and authorship and all these different things. But it's like when you can give a specific example, I know the women listening are going, yeah, how. What budget should we allocate for the shoes? They don't care anything I'm saying. They're just like, what's the. What's the amount I need to mark down? So how do you decide? This is going to be my shoe budget? This is going to be the XYZ budget.

Like, yeah. So after we've really done a thorough analysis of what your current expenses are.

Okay.

And we've cut out any stuff you don't need because most of us have subscriptions. Yeah. Things like that. How much money do you make now? How much money can you set aside for investing now? We look at, well, we want to have a little bit of play money so we can enjoy life. What does that look like? How much can we put into that bucket so that we have fun? But we're not taking away from our goals that we've set for ourselves, whether that's buying a house, retiring, getting out of debt, really looking at that whole picture and setting apart like just a little bit. And even if you take cash out, like Dave Ramsey used to teach with his cash envelopes, take cash out, say it's a hundred dollars, put it in envelope and you could buy that shoe this month. Or you can wait till next month and have $200, you know, but making sure that it doesn't take you away from what your goals are.

Or save up for 10 or 14 and get some red bottoms.

Yeah, I do have one of those.

What else is something else people should be focused on for budgeting? So we talked about the shoes. That's cool as heck about the whiskey. What are some other things that it's you talked about cutting stuff out, but what are some other key areas that you've seen across the board that most people are overlooking?

Yeah, so we did talk about cutting out. And let's focus on that for just a minute. Most people with, you know, credit cards and bank statements be electronic, they never look at them. So I challenge you to go past like 90 days, print out your bank statements, print out your credit cards. What are you paying for that you may forgot about? Maybe it's an annual subscription that you didn't even know you signed up for and cut it out. And then that money that you're saving, you're either putting it towards your debt or towards your financial goals. But I think when you become aware of what your spending habits are by looking at it, like physically printing statements out, don't look at it on your computer, don't be on your phone, but look at your statements. And if you're married, look at it together and say, hey, do we really need this? Is this helping us to get to our financial goals? And if not, cut it out. Move that expense line over to whatever it is your goals are so that you can hit it faster. But until you become aware of where your spending habits are, you're not going to be able to change them. So don't look at it on a computer, physically print out that paper.

I love that you're saying it's one reason I love printing books and I've always printed stuff out. I loved it back in when the Internet came around, let's just say a few years ago. I don't want to date myself, but people are like, oh yeah, we're not going to need to print anything. And now it's like I love physical copies and highlighting it. Hey, did you realize this? What's that? I mean, eight point text. It's like everything looks the same to you. Go. When did that happen?

Yep. That's why I can never give my books away. And I'm sure it won't surprise you that all my highlighters are pink. But I still dog ear pages. I still highlight. And I keep my books because I can't give them away. It's been highlighted. I put notes on the pages and then I can go back and reread it because as you know, when you reread books later on in life, you get different things from it. I only read business books, mostly about money. It's rare that I find a book now though, that really piques my interest when it comes to investing or budgeting. So I do a Lot of business books. And if I'm going to, you know, watch something that's fiction, that's fine, but I don't read those type of books. I'm very intentional about what I put into my brain so that I can help teach other people.

What do you watch that's fiction?

Hallmark movies. Oh, and scary movies.

Those are based on real life though, aren't they?

I know, but scary movies, probably my favorite. So Halloween is probably one of my favorite holidays because I like to go to the scary houses and get scared. And it's just fun to watch other people too.

It's. You like what? Delighting in other people's pain. You like watching them get scared at the Halloween houses?

I do. I don't like gory movies, but I like the element of being scared. So if you don't quite know what's there and you hear the noises, I love that part of the movies.

Well, that would explain the budgeting. I think most people open up that and get freaked out. I gotta ask you about, can we go deeper with what you were saying about when you're looking into the budgets of things so there's all these different good things you're telling us. And I want to know more about when you're having people look at the budgeting. What are some business things on the business side now that the leads, the marketing, you know, because I think there's this, hey, this is an investment. And I hear this all the freaking time. I'm making an investment and I'm not talking bullion or an apartment or storage or real estate. It's like you can literally just say anything for business is an oh, I'm investing in myself. I'm investing in the business. How do you know that's a good deal? Because I think that's a area where you go, yes, I'm a successful business owner. I don't have any of the common everyday. I'm not wasting money on fast food and all that. Okay, that's real clear. But when you go, I have ten opportunities. They're going to be a hundred dollars, $1,000 or ten grand a piece. I don't, I want all opportunity. I'm going to invest in myself, invest in the business. Would you agree that can be a trap too? Because it's all with good intentions, but 80% may be waste anyhow.

Yeah. So being in the real estate field for over 20 years, realtors are great at chasing shiny objects. So very. I understand exactly where you're coming from. And here's what I Challenge people. If you're going to implement something new in your, in your business, if it's marketing or a lead generation, one at a time, become a master of it. But you also have to learn how to track it. I'm a spreadsheet person, I know most people don't like spreadsheets, but you should be able to track in your business where your business is coming from. And if you don't have that system in place, then how are you to know if you implement something new, if it's actually adding to your bottom line numbers and adding profit? Adding profit, right. So one at a time, become the master. Know exactly what kind of return you're getting from that and then implement something else. And that's not to say that you are going to, you know, implement something every week. Spend a little bit of a time with that first lead generation, with that first marketing. See where that goes in your business. If it's working great, test it for 90 days, 126 months before you add anything else. This way you really truly know what the numbers look like for that and whether or not it makes sense for you and your business. Then you can start adding on there. And I say that to new business owners too. Start off with one product, start off with one service. Does the market want this business? And if that doesn't work, you cut that out and you add something else. Because when you go too wide, too quickly with too many projects or too many businesses, then you're really not going to be profitable or you're going to have no idea where it's coming from. Even with the most experienced accounting team, it's hard to track numbers if you don't have a good system in place and you don't really implement slowly so that you can build that business. Because businesses, like they say this is a marathon, it's not a sprint. We're not trying to hurry up and get to the fastest profit possible with a bunch of shiny objects because then you're really going to not have any profit because you have no idea what's going on in your business.

Words of wisdom. What do you suggest for KPIs?

Well, it depends on the type of business. I like I said, I'm old school, I love spreadsheets. If you're not great at tracking your own numbers, at least hire a part time bookkeeper so that they can look at some of that information for you and just give it to you so you can understand as the owner of your company, it's hiring out what you're not good at, right? As you know, I'm not great at writing books, so if I wanted to write a book, I definitely would hire you or get some help understanding, you know, where your strengths are and then looking at each thing and having a great tracking system in place for it.

You have so much wisdom. I could take this in five different directions. You still good? I'm trying to give you some hardball stuff, but everything I'm like, throwing at you, you're, like, knocking out of the park.

Hey, don't ask me about marketing or how to write a book.

I'm going to have to pull you back on the marketing one. Why don't you share with everyone what you told me? I was like, what are you doing? You made a comment about your time in this and that and you. I. I thought I misheard you. You said, I'm doing this five times a week and I'm like, your show.

Yeah, well, if you're going to pick something, like I said, if you're going to find one avenue in your business, you go all in and you just do that thing. I decided I wanted to be a podcast host, and the best way for me to learn about podcasting is by doing so. I record five shows every Thursday for my own podcast, and then I go on other people's show because I want to see what they're doing. I want to see what kind of platforms are they using, you know, how do they generate their own traffic, how do they give the podcast back to me so that I can get best practice practices from people? Been doing it longer and I'm learning from them. And so if I'm going to do one thing podcast, then I'm going to actually put that to work and then learn from other people.

So you're going on five different shows and recording a pretty ambitious amount of your own, and you're telling me you don't. Don't ask you about marketing?

Well, I don't know how to make people view it.

I guess I'm teasing you somewhat, but what you're sharing, what I'm hearing is focus and go for it and know what you're doing. Basically.

Very good way of briefing what I just said. Thank you.

I'm trying. I know we could go for hours and we only have a limited amount of time, but I'm getting so much out of this. And. And let's talk about men versus women. This isn't polarizing. You had touched on men are usually more logical and I said more boring and women are more heart centric. How can they complement each other in business? And what do you see as the common problems currently that are still going on? Because we both know they're still going on. I do what I can to bridge the gap. I actually love having powerful women on the show and I've told our booking agents, I'm like, men are more boring. Just straight up like, oh cool, he's done. Oh my God. Like, nope. Yeah, so let's, how do we bridge this gap?

Yeah, so I don't necessarily say men are boring. They're logical for sure. They look at the process, what's the bottom line look like? How do we grow the business? You know, they're very straight lined to the point and that's good, that's great for a lot of things. They're also bigger risk takers. So in business that could pay off big dividends or not. Yeah. So then that's where the woman comes in because she's definitely going to be more conservative. She's not a risk taker and she can help balance out and say, well, what if this or what if that or have you thought about this? You know, so it, it appeals to the logical side, side of usually the male that's in the business, but a woman is how do we build relationships? How do we take care of our employees? Which is great for your bottom line. You're not having to hire and retrain people. So it's a good balance between the two when it comes to investing. Women are, you know, we are heart centered, which can not be a great thing if you're in the single family home space. For example, if you have a single family home and you're renting it and your family that lives in that home, you know, they had some medical bills or it's Christmas, women are going to be like, oh, that's okay, you know, because they're going to feel it here. Whereas the guy is going to be like, wait a minute, you're going to pay rent? This is the lease, you signed it. And it's not that they're unemotional about it, they're just more logical when it comes to the thinking. So having the two together to be able to balance out each other can be a really good thing in business. So if you're, if you're looking, you know, to grow your team and get your team more involved and really, you know, buy into your business, consider having a female like an operations lead or someone like that that can throw baby showers and birthday parties and just keep the camaraderie Piece of your team going so that they're more motivated to do sales. They still need that driver and that's a great quality that a lot of men have. But then balancing out that with the emotion piece just has that, that synergy that a lot of companies thrive on so that they can have more sales.

Yeah, you're more eloquent than me. That was phenomenal. The reality is that, you know, everyone has their strengths and weaknesses and I'm so glad you understand both sides of it and let play into it. I mean, the event you did, all women. I checked out some of the reviews and what made you so obviously you're a woman, but you're a risk taker too. To agree. You did your own live event and why'd you step out and put everything on your shoulders when you could just go, obviously speak eloquently to other people's. What made you want to go? I want to like the show, your book, everything. Why are you putting all the risk on you?

I'm a very curious person, but these are calculated risks, right? So I didn't throw an event at an expensive venue to pack out a thousand people. I had a room that had 50 seats. I knew I needed to fill 50 seats. Looked at it from a statistical standpoint, not everyone who buys a ticket shows up. So I needed to sell 65 tickets for me to feel comfortable with a sold out event. So it was very calculated risk. And how can I teach people about speaking about, you know, throwing their events and being profitable if I didn't do it myself? So I'm not going to teach on subjects that I'm not an expert in that I haven't done myself. And that's very important for me in my podcast and for being in the business world writing a book, I was very curious. I wanted to put my thoughts into a book. I wanted a simple book that gave you 101 action items that you can implement into your world today. I didn't want you to need a dictionary to learn about money. It's a simple book and I wanted to put it out there. And I did a lot of research. I learned Amazon and kdp. I had a coach help me write the book and so I wanted to be a bestseller. How can I teach other people how to profit from writing a book or how to be an authority from writing a book if I didn't do something myself? So I'm very keen on being an expert and I tell people all the time, if you're going to learn about a topic, you need to become a student, Seek out mentors that are experts and learn first before you execute.

I love that. I couldn't agree more. I've been telling people the same thing for a while. Tell me about the 65. You said 65. For you to feel comfortable, you needed 50. You knew everyone not has a ticket. Why not 70? Why not? And I'm not even joking around here. Like, how did you figure out that was your margin, which is basically seven and a half percent?

Yeah, well, it was more of how many people are not going to show up. So statistically, from my research is 10 to 15% do not show up.

Okay.

I wanted to make it look like I sold out an event. Like, it was a packed event. Everybody needed to be here. And that's how I got my testimonials, because people were there and they're like, this is your first event and you sold out. And you had great speakers. Well, one, I reached out to my sphere. Everyone likes to speak. Not everybody. So I knew who to pick from. Right. None of my speakers I paid. I had a budget in place that I needed to stay here, too. Yeah. So I asked every speaker come to my event. I know it's my first event, but I promise I'm going to put a lot of hard work into it. I can't pay you as a speaker. And every person that I asked said yes. And so having great speakers in Miami, selling out the event. At the end, my camera crew just grabbed a bunch of people and said, hey, can you give me a quick testimonial about this event? And now I've got these testimonials that I'm going to use in my marketing forever. Because I put so much effort into one event to be able to produce all of that content afterwards. And now I know what an event feels like.

That's phenomenal. I've. Ever since my first book, Video Marketing for Business Owners, I've told people, I have one right here I'm looking at. You can get it even for your cell phone when you're walking off stage. I just did this at the last event I spoke at, and people are like, wow, that was phenomenal. Thank you. I appreciate that. Would you mind saying that on camera? And there's events I've picked up 11, 15. And this is from 30 people in the room. Also. 40, 50. You don't need everyone. But in a lot of people think, oh, I can only use client testimonials because that's what most people have. Like, if you're a speaker, literally Everyone in the room, don't lie. Always be honest, lead with truth. But everyone in the room can give you a testimonial on speaking. Maybe they're not your client or just even personal interactions. You know, all the shows you've been on and stuff like that. So that is phenomenal. Congratulations. And I didn't know it was 10 to 15. The events I've done, I've always rounded up to 20 because it's just a nice, even square number. And, you know, for the book launches and red carpets and stuff we've done with different people, it's like. And my own. The first one I did on my own, I was like, I get it. There's a lot of moving parts. But how are you going to tell someone you should do a VIP book launch with red carpet if you don't do one? Right?

Absolutely.

So I'm. I gotta ask you two questions before we thank the sponsor. One is yellow or black.

Yellow.

All right, here's the wheel of whatever. Should have added pink square just for you, so it's not like I haven't asked you fun stuff already, but I wonder which question you're gonna get. What kind of question do you want?

Easy one.

There we go. What did it end up on? Easy one. Like how easy?

Oh, hopefully something about business.

No. Tell me a secret you haven't told anyone personally.

Oh, no, that's not an easy one. A secret I haven't told anybody. Let's see. I mean, I feel like I'm pretty open, especially when it comes to the interviews, but most people know that I have a concealed weapons permit. They probably don't know that it is in a drawer next to a curling iron and makeup, which is very odd to keep a gun in that position, but it's just closest to my bed, and so I like to have it there. It's just secure for me, but, yeah, I keep it with all of my other women. Pretty beauty products, which is not in place for. Again, to think to be. Yeah.

Okay, so that worked. You actually said something. I did not know either of those. You said, most people know that I have concealed. I did not. But now I got to ask you, Smith and Wesson, Beretta, what do you got?

Yeah, it's an S and W, and I actually have a sign in my window that says, I shoot first, ask questions later.

Oh, that's fantastic. Very cool, very cool. All right, we're gonna thank the sponsor and come back for the imperfect action round. You've heard me say every business needs a book. Including yours. And it's true. And that's why I'm launching my new book@eapublishingmethodbook.com so you can learn the seven steps to publish and promote your nonfiction lead and profit generating business book in eight weeks. But you know what? Don't take my word for it. Take it from a few of my authors like Lori, I went from having.

An idea and a possibility to actually.

Getting my book published. Or Catherine, thank you for making my.

Mom number one best selling author.

Or Mary Alice, what he got done.

For me in three days regarding my book launch, Unmanageable.

John Cody. I've worked with Mario over the phone and online and he's been very helpful in getting me where I needed to.

Go with promoting my books.

Rocio, there's no way in the world.

I would have been able to do.

This with somebody else again.

I've attempted it in the past.

It didn't serve me. As a matter of fact, I ended.

Up more frustrated than anything.

So this has been a very seamless process. Adele, if you're looking for an amazing business coach, I highly recommend Mario Ficini or Bill Benner. I can't make a higher recommendation than to work with Mario Ficini. He has been great for me and.

Right now I won't work with anybody.

Else except for Mario. Hey, their words, not mine. Visit eapublishingmethodbook.com to get your copy and I look forward to hearing your transformation as our next video success story. Once again, that's eapublishingmethodbook.com and we are back with the imperfect action round. Angela, are you ready to take imperfect action?

I think I'm more nervous about this part than anything, but let's go.

Really? Why? This is the easy stuff, I guess. Well, maybe not. Who knows what I'm gonna ask? I don't. Three questions, rapid fire. First one is you'll love this. This is like literally been built into the show since day one. What is the fastest path to the profits?

Invest in yourself first. Get educated.

There you go. Number two, what is the biggest problem you see your prospects making and the fastest way for them to fix it?

What we talked about on the show, implementing too many things too quickly and not tracking properly. So the way to fix it, one at a time.

Love that. I am a huge proponent of focus also because, I mean, shoot, you wake up. It's like, what's going on in the world today? I don't care. Here's what I'm doing and we'll See what happens after that.

Yeah, I think there's a quote in Karate Kid, the newer version of it, where it says like your focus needs more focus.

There we go. Number three, what is the best way to maximize customer lifetime value?

Oh, they need to know that you care. So hire a woman on your team so that you can have some heart centered people who show your clients that you care.

Very good. Being a publisher, I gotta ask you about more books. What ones would you recommend to Expert Authority World?

Yeah, so I don't read a ton of money books just like I've been studying it for so long, but recently, Wealth Habits by Candy Valentino. Very easy read. Love that she has action items in there. One of my first and early books was the Traveler's Gift and the chapter specifically on choosing to be happy.

It's a great book. Thank you for those. No one has mentioned that one. In a minute. Wow. Wow. Thank you for that, that little gift to me. What am I supposed to ask you? So books that where would you like people to learn more?

Yeah. Follow my podcast, Empower Her Money. I'm on Instagram, I post a lot of photos. I'm in Miami, so I love to network and go out. But if you have any money questions, send me a message. I personally check my messages for right now.

Very cool. Well, thank you so much. It's been an absolute pleasure and I can't wait to learn more.

Thank you.

All right, Expert Authority World, we have a great episode here today. I'll see you on the next one. Have a great day and God bless. You're already the expert, but have you transformed your expertise into a tangible asset that will generate qualified leads while increasing profit for you 247 and if so, how well are you promoting it? With my new book, the Expert Authority Effect Publishing Method, I take you through my process step by step. Visit eapublishingmethodbook.com today to learn the seven steps to publish and promote your nonfiction lead and profit generating business book in eight weeks. Visit eapublishingmethodbook.com to get started. Now, once again, that's eapublishingmethodbook.Com thanks for listening to today's episode. I would love to know what you enjoyed most from it if you haven't done so already. I invite you to connect with me on my new LinkedIn. You can go to it directly@eainterviews.com LinkedIn Once again, that's eainterviews.com LinkedIn lastly, check out the full eainterviews.com site for complete show notes, the full interview video experience, links to the resources we mentioned, and more. Have a blessed day and I'll see you on the next one.