EP9: Acquiring Freedom through Business Buying w/ Nicole Reed

So tell me about your Mount Everest. What are you looking to achieve over the next five years?

My Mount Everest is getting into RV parks, saying about setting the date.

Provide safe and affordable housing for 1250 people transitioning out of rehab centers. Welcome to the Discovery Mount Everest podcast. I'm your host, Andrew Sanchez, two time CFO of the year and Forbes featured entrepreneur. Every week I sit down with powerful voices from owners club to uncover their personal Mount Everest and the old visions they're chasing over the next five years. This podcast gives you a rare front row seat into the mindset of elite entrepreneurs and investors. What drives them, what challenges they're navigating, and how you might play a role in their ascent. So whether you're scaling your own peak or seeking to support others in their journey, you're in the right place. Let's begin the climb. All right, so we're diving into episode nine. We have special guest owners club member Nicole Reed. Thank you for joining. I'm very excited to learn more about you today. Where. So tell us, tell everyone. Where are you coming from today?

I just flew into San Jose today and down here in Monterey, California for the owners club retreat. But I flew in from Seattle, drove over the mountain and am from Central Washington.

Nice. Nice. Very cool. How long have you been in any other communities? Are you in sub 2? Are you in Gator?

I am in Gator. I joined last May.

Nice.

Just over a year.

Nice. Very cool. And I assume that's been a good experience for you and that made you take the leap into owner's club. Is this your first year in it or second year?

First year. First year.

First year. Nice.

Yes.

So what are you looking to get out of owner's club?

I really wanted to surround myself with other individuals who were essentially taking action in order to level up where what I'm doing, where what my game is and just to be able to take it to the next level. And so I'm a driver. If you in one of the. I can't remember what it's called, but essentially the personality types.

Okay.

So if anything, like, I'm going to be the one who is like taking action.

So is that like more like an integrator role?

Yeah.

Okay, gotcha for sure.

And it's sometimes good, it's sometimes bad because sometimes I jump in and then I'm like, oh poo. I've got a very odd to do amount. But anyway, I just wanted to surround myself by other individuals who were taking action, moving forward, moving the needle and meet all of those people and take the next step.

Nice. Very cool. And so what are you or what have you been focusing on since you started in real estate? Was joining Gator your first introduction to real estate or did you have a prior background in real estate?

I have. I was in rain before.

I haven't heard of that. Is that a mentorship?

Women's real estate.

Oh, okay. Nice.

And so that was my first exposure and I had joined that six months before I joined Gator and really that was my first exposure other than owning my own house. And once I joined, before I joined Gator, I started getting into. I had done one fix and flip and then was just starting my second one and then took a class on co living or pad split and just purchased. At the same time I started Gator, I purchased two co living properties. So one in San Antonio that's by myself and then one that's in Kansas City with other partners.

Okay.

And then I've done some lending, some pml, some transactional lending, connecting. And now I'm really focusing on trying to acquire businesses.

Nice. Tell me about acquiring businesses.

So myself and Kristi Thompson, who's also in owners club, she and I have partnered up and we're really focusing on this is going to run into the Mount Everest.

Right.

Really focusing on acquiring businesses, trying to help other women also acquire businesses in order to allow them to be able to get out of their W2s and be able to spend more time with their families. More time freedom. So that's where we've been focusing. We have put in.

That's pretty close to my Mount Everest too, actually. Yeah.

Oh good.

Not the women part, but they could be women. Yeah.

Honestly, like we're good with whatever but that was like where we wanted to like really help moms and. Cause that's the reason why I got into real estate is to try and I might have.

Oh, you're fine.

Is to try and make more time. Freedom to spend with my daughter. So we've put out three Lois at this point and we have a meeting tomorrow with another with a business broker in order to discuss one that we are planning on putting another loi.

Nice. Are you targeting a specific industry or is it pretty broad?

So we have electricians, chat companies, but in addition to that we put an LLTC company that has multiple operators and TCs on her staff. So we really wanted to find somebody who we felt like we had a good connection with and. And we could grow with. And so we interviewed multiple people and she was actually ended up being the person who were like, yeah, we feel like this is the right fit. And that conversation all started with one laundromat. Actually the first laundromat that we put in the LOI on. And she was just very flexible in like how we could work together and figuring it out as we go rather than having a very stringent, like strict criteria. And this is how it works. She was willing to like, let's talk about it. Let's figure out what works best for both of us and see what we can build, which I think is really great.

Yeah.

And then in terms of other situations, our plan is really, if we need bring in an operator to run the more hands off portions or the more hands off businesses and then we're figuring out the rest as we go.

Yeah. Hey, that's part of it, right? That's part of it. So are you. So you have one other partner, Right. And how do you guys tackle sourcing deals and underwriting? Who does what?

So I have a background in accounting. That's when I graduated.

Okay, nice.

So I feel very comfortable with financial statement, business analysis. And then my business partner, she actually does that for her. Debbie too. She works for a private equity firm and helps run businesses and purchase businesses for them. So she also feels very comfortable.

So it's within your. Yeah. Your wheelhouse and skill sets. That's awesome.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So we, and we just essentially both of us look at it, we then meet and say, hey, what do you think about this? Here's my questions. Here's your questions. And we go and ask the questions of the broker or the owner and then crunch some numbers and go from there.

Nice. So are you at this point, are you doing any real estate stuff or is it more geared towards charging hard on business buying?

I am still doing real estate as well. I am looking for more pet split or co living properties in Kansas City, Missouri. That's the market that we really are. That's where our one duplex is. And then we'd really like to expand that. It's a great market. It's not overly saturated for pad split. It's fairly new, but not super new. So people do know what's that? It's there. And also there's a huge need for it in Kansas City.

So nice is that, what would you do on the capital side there? Would you raise funds for. For that on the real estate side?

Ideally, we like to buy them creatively.

Yeah.

So the duplex that we own there, we bought it partially owner financing at 0%, which was amazing.

Nice.

I would totally take Another one of those in case anybody has one.

That's what this is for.

And partial sub 2. So it's a combination. It's a hybrid deal. And so really ideally that's what we would like to do. And then if with minimal buy in really is what we're looking for.

Nice.

Yeah.

Okay. Very cool. Very cool. So what can people bring to you that would be like an extremely valuable thing? Is it more leads for business buying? It sounds like either pad split on the real estate side, those opportunities in that market. What about businesses? Is there like a certain criteria for businesses that it needs to be under X percent entry or anything like that?

So for real estate, if you have leads, that would be good leads for pad split in Kansas city, definitely minimum 3, 1 1/2, 1200 square feet or larger. Ideally larger, but sometimes the numbers work at that size. And as far as businesses, if somebody has ideally we'd like to be off market. That doesn't always happen. But if somebody comes across a good base business or some good car washes or Laundromats or storage, we're game to look at them. My dad grew up, or I grew up with my dad being in the car wash industry.

Oh, nice.

I feel very comfortable. I just take it in him like, okay, dad, what is this? Is this a good brand? What does it look like? What do I. What questions do I need to ask? So been through that a couple times now, so I feel like I have a better grasp on what to look for and what to ask. So those are all things that we would be interested in.

Nice, Nice. Okay. All right. What, how, how can people like send you these deals? Is like email, Instagram. Are you pretty active on social media or.

I am really not on Instagram. I am on Facebook. And you're welcome to contact me via Facebook. Email is always great. My email address is nicolealtandsoilproperties.com with the. And spelled out.

There you go.

And so yeah, if anybody has anything, send them on over. And if you're interested in. Anybody's interested in buying businesses or partnering up, being a partner in a business thing, we would love that.

Nice. Are you thinking about using fractional at all for like the business component or possibly. Possibly.

Have you looked into it?

Yeah, I've looked into it. I haven't done it, done a project yet, but it's definitely on my radar as far as looking at. I think the concept is amazing. It is. I mean, I think it's great. I'm really just. I think what I've seen so far is there's people using fractional and raising like a lot of money that they've gotten a lot of spotlight and exposure from like Pace, the community. And so it's, I think it may have created a little bit of a false reality of how hard it really is because people are making it look so easy. But also the people that are raising capital and that have been like raising $1 million, half a million dollars, they've had a large following and they've done a lot of branding and social media. And it didn't just start like today, they've been doing it for years.

Yeah.

So I think when I look at that as I see that, I've noticed that these are really well seasoned people. Not only from operations perspective, the branding, the social media and they've been doing it for so long and they have this trusted brand that people are just like, take my money.

Yeah. I know that you know what you're doing.

Yeah.

Here you go.

So I think that is important to take into consideration and setting realistic expectations for anyone like looking to do that.

Okay.

And even like I'm looking myself, it's like when is the right time to do that and what can I expect from like the work that I put in the past year, two years or whatever.

Yeah.

So if someone's just brand new and they're seeing someone raise half a million dollars and they try to do the same, it's probably not going to end well.

Yeah.

So that is, that is a consideration that people need to think about. But I think being an owner's club, you'll get that exposure that a lot of people are getting that other people just won't have access to just because of the opportunities in owners club. And you'll get that spotlight if that's the path that you want to go down. So a lot of people should utilize the owners club team. Like the support we're talking before the podcast, reaching out to support and seeing what resources are available when those opportunities come, be ready to pounce on them. Being active on the different channels, which is. Can be sometimes like a full time job. But it's really important because those opportunities like come up.

No. And it's, it is difficult right now because I still have my full time.

Yeah.

And so time is definitely precious.

Yep.

No, I think I was going to say is that I forgot about is one of the things that we did for the portfolio is we actually presented it to Heather and Jade and asked, hey, would you, would this be something that Pace would want to either help blend on or partner on. And so when we got done, they were like, this is great. This sounds super interesting and sounds like a great opportunity. Once you have more information then your LOI gets accepted. Bring it back with all of the answers that you have. So that's another opportunity and I think they're right now trying to figure out what their buy box or what they are wanting to be involved with. But I think it's a great opportunity to present, get in front of somebody, present what your your project and possibly ask for funding that way as well.

Heck yeah. That's awesome. Send her some deals, real estate, businesses. She's doing it all. She's killing it. I'm excited to see what what the next 12 months looks like for you and sounds like you're well on your way. You've already gotten several offers out. That's awesome. Businesses obviously take longer to close, so it's definitely a long journey once you get started, as you probably know. But it sounds like you're getting out there taking action. So that's amazing.

Yeah. Thank you.

I'm looking forward to the retreat hasn't started yet, but I'm looking forward to walking out of here with new perspectives and new relationships and I'm sure you are the same as well, but gonna be awesome. Yeah, yeah. I'm looking forward to it. Thank you again for coming on to the show. And that wraps up episode nine, so stay tuned. We're going to be cranking these out all retreat so thank you for watching. We'll see you next time.