The Key to Scaling that Most Real Estate Investors Miss Out On (+New Podcast!) w/ Liz Faircloth & Andresa Guidelli

Brandon:
This is the BiggerPockets Podcast show 486.

Andresa:
But it comes down to okay, something went off. Usually, it’s the expectations. We got into a partnership with completely different expectations. That’s what I’ve seen the most of breakdown when the expectations are not met or we assume that that’s what the person meant and vice versa.

Speaker 3:
You’re listening to BiggerPockets Radio, simplifying real estate for investors, large and small. If you’re here looking to learn about real estate investing without all the hype, you’re in the right place. Stay tuned and be sure to join the millions of others who have benefited from biggerpockets.com, your home for real estate investing online.

Brandon:
What’s going on? It’s Brandon Turner, host of the BiggerPockets Podcast here with my co-host, Mr. David “continually improving” Greene. What’s up, man?

David:
Nice nickname. Your nickname game has actually improved quite a bit. I’m wondering if that’s because our partnership has affected you positively.

Brandon:
We do have a positively perfect partnership, don’t we here on the podcast? That’s what today’s show is all about is having a positively perfect podcast. No, no, it’s about partnerships. I don’t have any more keywords. But that’s the goal of today’s show is by the time you’re done listening to this, you’re going to know how to find, vet, connect with, work with, and put together partnerships that are going to help take your business to the next level, because here’s the truth.

Brandon:
So much of what David and I have done has been through partnerships. In fact, the way that I’ve grown the most over the past two years, Open Door Capital speaking, was just bringing in partners, because here’s the truth. You can only be world class at a few things. I’m sorry, no matter how awesome you are, you’re just probably not world class at a lot of things. I’m not world class at hardly anything. So, when you can bring in other people who are world class of what they do, it’s amazing what happens. David for example, you partner in a lot of areas, I mean, real estate. For example, you have a mortgage business, right?

David:
Yeah.

Brandon:
You have partners there, because you can do some awesome stuff and the partners can do some awesome stuff. It enables you to be one of the bigger mortgage people ever. Yeah, it’s cool stuff. I love partnerships. So, this show is all about that today. But first, we got to get to today’s quick tip.

David:
Quick tip.

Brandon:
So, today’s quick tip is we have a new show on the BiggerPockets Podcast Network, BiggerPockets Money. We’ve got The Rookie Show. We got Real Estate. Now, we have The Real Estate InvestHER Podcast. You may have heard of them before. It’s Andresa Guidelli and Liz Faircloth. They are our guests today, but they have an amazing podcast lined up for you all, actually, an entire show that you can go listen to and subscribe to. That’s your quick tip. Go subscribe to it, because they’ve got some good stuff coming, including an interview with Sharon Lechter who is the co-author of Rich Dad Poor Dad. That’s actually out right now on The Real Estate InvestHER Podcast. So, it’s InvestHER like H-E-R, right? Get it, David? InvestHER.

David:
I get it.

Brandon:
You get it. Pretty clever, right? So go check it out, biggerpockets.com/investher, InvestHER. You can check it out there and find it wherever podcasts are found. So, that’s today’s show. Now, before we get into the interview with Andresa and Liz, let’s hear from today’s show sponsor.

Brandon:
Now, alrighty, with that said, I think it’s time to get into it. David, anything you want to say or do or announce before we jump into…

David:
I really love today’s podcast. So, maybe mentally prepare yourself for being ready to receive information that could be different than the way that you’ve typically thought about real estate. A lot of what we talked about today is how to find the right partner, how to avoid the wrong partner, how to set up a partnership that’s actually going to work, being okay with the fact you may have to go through a couple before you find the right one.

David:
A lot of people don’t find the traction that they need in business or in real estate, because they’re doing jobs that they’re not good at doing. Like Brandon said, you can only be world class at a couple things, if at all. So, be okay having the conventional wisdom that you’ve grown up thinking challenged by today’s podcast and really ask yourself, “If I found the right partner, could I get over some of the hurdles I’m struggling with right now?

Brandon:
Mister continual improvement, shall we continue this show?

David:
Let’s bring them in.

David:
Hey, welcome to the show. We’re happy to have you on the BiggerPockets Podcast Network.

Liz:
Yeah, we’re so excited to be here. We’re so honored and really pumped to have joined the BiggerPockets Network. Our podcast, as many know or hopefully know, has been around for a few years. We’re all about empowering women to live a financially free and balanced life.

Andresa:
Yes. Here’s what you can expect from our interviews. We’re going to interview successful woman in real estate to know their secret sauce about real estate strategies. We will also want to know their journey and what made them successful on their own terms. So, we are super excited to join in the network and couldn’t wait for what’s about to happen.

Brandon:
Yeah. So, we want to quickly touch on your story in case people have not heard your story before, but I know each of you have been on the show before. Liz, have you been on twice or just once before? I know you’ve been on at least once.

Liz:
Twice. Yeah, twice, 88 and 203. I looked it up right before we got on.

Brandon:
Oh, nice. Very good. Andresa, do you know what number you were on?

Andresa:
Mine is 314.

Brandon:
All right. So, you’ve been on more recent. So, let’s dive into each of your stories. We’ll start with Liz. Just a quick refresher for those who maybe didn’t listen to those episodes, who are you? How did you get into real estate? What do you do?

Liz:
Sure, sure. So, I got into real estate right out of grad school. My husband and I met. Well, we didn’t get married first. We met and then got married, but started investing in our 20s. Just really from reading Rich Dad Poor Dad, my brother-in-law, who was literally the only entrepreneur I knew in my life, gave me the book and said, “You need to read this.” I said, “I’m going to school for social worker. I want to counsel people and be a therapist,” which I still am, but unofficially. But anyway, long story short, my husband and I just both read it, at the time, boyfriend. We’re like, “This is amazing.” We never thought about passive income. All the terms that you don’t ever hear about, we heard about in that book. It really turned our eyes to diving into it.

Liz:
So, in our 20s, no money, no experience, no one in our family that did this. Everyone thought we were crazy, started taking local REA meetings. A year later, after lots of no’s and hard work, got a loan from my father for $30,000 and bought a duplex outside of Philadelphia and learned a lot on that building, because it was our first time land lording. It’s our first time doing anything. And then my husband quit his job after one duplex. It certainly was not replacing his income like a lot of other smart people talk about. We just said, “Screw it, just quit your job.” I took a corporate job actually in sales, because that was one of the big things I got from Rich Dad Poor Dad. So, I didn’t actually become a therapist.

Liz:
Anyway, long story short, we grew our business. Yeah, I really wanted to learn selling, because it said, “If you will have one skill as an entrepreneur, you need to know how to sell.” I was like, “How do you sell? I don’t know anything about that.” So, I’m like, “Let me take this corporate management training job,” and did that for about a decade. My husband quit his job right when we got married. That was 17 years ago. So, long twist and turns and things of that sort, but we grew our portfolio and now focus mostly on multifamily syndication. We have buildings in four states and have really gone all in on multifamily after a lot of twists and turns and just trying different things in the business and having wins, having some losses, and learning everything around the circle of investing.

David:
That’s fantastic.

Brandon:
Yeah, I definitely want to encourage people to go back and listen to each of your stories, because that was a very abbreviated version of what was an amazing long story, which is what we have to do today, because today, we want to get to talking about partnerships. But first, Andresa, let’s hear from you. By the way, I’m saying your name correctly, right? I know last time, I think I butchered it when I interviewed you.

Andresa:
You are. That’s totally fine. I’m used to people [inaudible 00:08:01]. Okay. So, I was born in Brazil. I didn’t even know the meaning of real estate to be quite honest with you. So, I came to the US on my own for my master’s degree. I didn’t know a single person. During my last semester, I took a sales job. As Liz said, I thought in my head, “Well, I need at least to get sales skills.” I don’t want to be a salesperson, but I need to gain more experience in sales. So, I took door-to-door sales for Verizon. So, I had the opportunity to talk to intrapreneurs every single day, but one day, I came to my manager and I said, “Listen, can you recommend me a book that talks more about sales? Because I want to grow my team. If I make more money, you make more money.”

Andresa:
He’s like, “No.” And then he pushed across a table a small, purple book. I was like, “What is this? What is Rich Dad Poor Dad?” He said, “You’re going to read this weekend. And then in next week, you’re going to come and we’re going to have a talk, because one thing I know, you’re not going to stay here forever. I can see it, but you can right now, but we’ll get there.” That was the big turn. I read the book and I was like, “How come this entire world exists about real estate? How come I don’t know this, right?”

Andresa:
And then took Rich Dad Poor Dad courses and dive into it. Six months later, bought my first investment property. I appeal the appraisal after we rehab it. With that money, it propelled to continue investing, started doing single family full gut renovations, and then started scaling, new construction, doing 15 projects at the same time. I gained experience in both residential and also commercial real estate and larger projects and here I am.

Brandon:
Very cool, very cool. How did you two meet? Do you guys work together now? Is that correct? I don’t want to get that story wrong.

Liz:
Yeah, we do. Obviously, InvestHER community, we came together and formed that. We’ve also worked on a number of projects together in real estate as well prior to that and still do as it comes up. So, yeah. I mean, I reached out to Andresa and we met through BiggerPockets, which is really super cool. Matt and I were, I always say, dabbling in flipping, because that’s what we’re doing. I wouldn’t say we scaled our flipping business, definitely interview other people on best practices on flipping. I can tell you everything not to do, but anyway, we really were struggling. We were doing some good projects, but we were just like, “This market’s getting outpriced in Jersey,” because we were doing everything in New Jersey.

Liz:
We said, “We really want to go to Philadelphia.” We said, “There’s some great markets. We don’t know the markets, though, as well.” We’re looking for Philadelphia investors and Andresa’s name popped up. So, we reached out. I think I had the first call with you, Andresa. You spoke so fast. I was like, “Wow, she gets right down to it.” I was like, “I like her.” So anyway, we met for coffee. We went to Philadelphia. My husband and I, Andresa and her husband, four of us connected and met and really developed a friendship. We didn’t partner on anything. We just were friends for many years. And then you had a project on the table. You said, “Hey, would you both be interested in partnering us on this flip?”

Liz:
And then we did six or seven projects together over the course of the next few years. It was one of the times we were getting together, Brandon, that we said… We would get together. We’d have our little coffee at Panera. We’d have a little talk about some projects. We’d talk about our life. We’d talk about everything. We’d be like, “Wouldn’t it be so amazing to ask other women in this business what they’re doing and how they’re doing it?” We have great relationships with so many men. I have so many amazing men in my life, but her and I are like, “There’s just not a lot of women. We didn’t see a lot of women in the business six years ago when we were meeting and what have you.”

Liz:
So, we said, “Wouldn’t it be neat to just interview women and build a community? If nothing else, we’re going to connect with some great rockstar women, but we think there might be other women who might need this too.” We started just like that in a Panera and created the community from there with a shared passion of wanting something for ourselves and wanting something for other women as well and creating something bigger than ourselves.

Brandon:
I love it. I love it. It’s called The InvestHER community, correct?

Andresa:
The Real Estate InvestHER community.

Brandon:
I love it, super clever, super clever. All right. So, I thought today’s show would be fun to do a deep dive on partnerships. We do a lot of story episodes where we ask people their story, 1st deal, 2nd deal, 5th deal, 10th deal. And then every once in a while, we want to go into a topic, because again, people listen to the show. Well, what do I do about partnership? I want to be like, “Go to this episode. This is the one you want to listen to, Episode 486.”

Brandon:
So, let’s dive into partnerships today, because partnerships have been enabled me to grow. They enabled David here to grow. They enabled each of you to grow. Probably millions of other real estate investors have grown bigger than they could have, because of partnerships. So, I got a bunch of questions I’m going to throw at you today. David and I will take team these questions and we’ll get to the bottom of this whole partnership thing in real estate. Sound good, everyone?

Liz:
Deal.

Andresa:
Yeah.

Brandon:
All right, hands in the middle. Go team on three. I’m just kidding. All right.

Liz:
I was doing it, Brandon. I had my hand in the middle.

Brandon:
I believe you would. I believe you would. What questions should you ask yourself and your partner before getting into a partnership?

Andresa:
Before I answer that, Liz and I see partnerships in real estate as relationships that you build. We see a lot of people getting married very, very quick, and then getting a divorce and then blaming the other partner for something that happened in that relationship. So, before you get into a relationship and a partnership, before you get into that partnership, there are some questions that you need to ask yourself, the other partner and ask questions together. So, the questions that you can ask yourself is, “What am I good at? What I my bringing to the table? Is it skill set? Is it time? Is it fund? What is it?” That needs to be very clear, because the worst thing that you can do is to partner up with somebody that brings the same thing. You have the same personality, right?

Andresa:
Two risk takers, danger. Two people that are very conscious about making a deal, danger. Do the same thing with your partner. Talk to me about, “What are your goals?” Super important to talk about values, right? Liz and I always say align on values and differentiate or diverse into skill sets and personalities. We can talk more about that, but those are the things that we’ll recommend asking yourself and/or their partner. And then together, you can come together in a meeting and say, “Okay, what is the vision for the business? Is this a one-time deal? Is this a long term deal? What happens if things don’t go right?” All those conversations need to happen prior of you signing an agreement or even thinking about opening up an LLC. Those are the questions that we recommend.

Brandon:
Yeah, that’s so good, because so many times, I see people make the mistake of, “Well, yeah, my buddy from work wants to invest in real estate, so do I. Let’s do it together,” or “A guy from high school I just talked to on Facebook, he wants to invest real estate. We’re going to do it together,” with no question of, “Why do you need that person?” I mean, a lot of times it’s a crutch. Not that a crutch is a bad thing. Sometimes you just need a little bit of help when you’re getting started with the motivation. But if neither of you like talking to contractors and you’re trying to flip houses, you’re like, “Uh-oh. Well, you do it. No, you do it and you do it.” It gets weird.

Brandon:
But if one person is really good at the math, one person is good at handling contractors, well, now you got a winning formula, right? Yeah. So, let me ask this question in a related sense, before getting into a partnership or maybe as you get into partnership, I should say, should you do one deal first or the whole business? You know what I mean? There’s like, “Hey, we’re going to go flip a house” versus “We’re going to create a company. This is what the company’s name is. This is the charter, and this is the blah, blah, blah.” Where do you find the line between going all in, but also testing the waters to make sure that you fit?

Liz:
Yeah, I mean, I just didn’t jump into thought there. I mean, when Andresa and I met, we didn’t meet and we’re like, “We’re going to create this community.” The first day we met, we’re like, “So, what we’re going to do is we’re going to start a podcast. Then we’re going to start a community. What’s your personality and style? My style is this. What are your skills and experience?” We just had coffee, right? It’s literally just coffee. And then it grows. It’s so interesting, because what I always say to people is we became really good friends. I got to know Andresa, not Andresa the real estate investor. I got to know her. We got to know each other really well. And then what was born out of that was we started a mastermind.

Liz:
We actually found all the women through the network we were doing on BiggerPockets. As five women around the country, we literally just ended that mastermind for a lot of different reasons, not because we didn’t really appreciate each other because they’re great badass women. But the five women and we came together and said, “Let’s do this project together.” We didn’t charge. Everyone did it for free. Just women coming together to help each other long before InvestHER. We divided and conquered. I saw what Andresa can do. She saw what I could do.

Liz:
We started learning about each other’s strengths. We started learning about each other’s weaknesses, right? Because we all have them. So, it’s this test case for free, no money in, nothing at stake, nothing on the line. We didn’t know this at the time, but in hindsight, I recommend people do a project together that is really low risk. Starting an LLC and buying a property is not low risk. It’s actually more risky to do that with someone you don’t know. Her and I started a mastermind. What would happen if we didn’t meet on that Thursday? Well, then everyone’s annoyed because we didn’t start the Skype at the time, because that’s what we use for Skype. But anyway, that was a really good test.

Liz:
And then we moved to doing one flip together. And then we moved to doing few at the same time. And then we were doing a new construction. So, the time we got to InvestHER and we came together on that, I was like, “I don’t need to vet Andresa as a partner.” Now, we’ve learned things about each other on this level of partnership that we didn’t really learn previously, which we’ve had to grow through and work through and come to a lot of meetings together and just try to collaborate on. It hasn’t been perfect on any sense. Nothing is. No relationship that’s great is perfect, right? So, just some insight. Low risk project is a great place to start before anything. No money was in. We didn’t do any of that just yet.

David:
No relationship itself that is good can start off right off the bat where you just work everything out. People will tell you what you want to hear. People will intend to do what they know you need. People make decisions on emotions and you don’t know how emotions are going to go. It’s something I found with people I went into business with that became successful through our partnership much faster than what they expected. The weight of that success literally changed those people. Their agenda changed. What they wanted changed. Some of them couldn’t handle the success that came their way. I’ve looked back and I realized I should have waited a little bit longer to get to know that person before we dumped that much on them. It’s just we don’t want to, right?

David:
We want to get into business and we want to start making money. We want to start taking over the world and we tell ourselves the best case scenario. So, I really like that advice. It’s not just about the partnership regarding who does what in the business. It’s about the person. I think part of why Brandon and I have a good relationship is that we will figure out what needs to be done when it comes to the business. We both look out for each other, but I don’t worry that he would burn me and he doesn’t worry that I would burn him. We both know we can trust each other. So, when it comes to the practical side of how are things getting get divvied up, each of us knows we will rise up to the occasion of what we need.

David:
If there wasn’t that trust there, it’d be very hard to take any form of significant step. I think that’s a big piece that people miss when they’re looking for a partner is that human being and how they value things. What their character is is very important. Maybe I should ask you this. Have you made partnerships with people that did not work out because of that reason?

Andresa:
No, all of our partnerships went perfectly fine. Of course, we did. I think that those were the biggest lessons, right? You get a lot of great lessons where your partnerships don’t go right, but the worst thing that you can do is to not take responsibility for your part in it and just blame the other person. I think that that’s one big thing. When people come to me and say, “Yeah, my contractor just stole money and run away,” and I ask, “What did you do to contribute to that situation as a whole?” Because if you don’t know that, you’re going to make that mistake again.

Andresa:
So, vetting process and other things that you can put in place in a relationship and a partnership, one thing that we always say is the commitment, not the commitment between the two people to make that relationship work, the commitment among themselves to make sure that they are working on their own stuff. We’re both working on our own stuff. Liz has different things that she works on. I have different things that I’m working on, but we are constantly improving and being very, very honest and straight forward with each other. And then when there are breakdowns, we are always looking like, “There is a breakthrough over here. What can we learn into those relationships?”

Andresa:
When you were in it, when the relationship is going down the hill, it’s not pleasant. It’s not good at all. It really comes down to, “What can I do better over here? How can I handle this in a different way?” Not every single thing is going to be like, “Okay, nice working with you.” No, you go to the left. I go to the right. We’re good, right? But it comes down to okay, something went off. Usually, it’s the expectations. We got into a partnership with completely different expectations. That’s what I’ve seen the most of breakdown when the expectations are not met or we assume that that’s what the person meant and vice versa.

Liz:
I would also add to that, personality. I think, personality is so important. People just don’t value it as much. Even beyond time and money and expertise, all those important things in investing, we all know that, the personality… That’s what I did. I did that for 10 years. So, while I was in the business and helping grow our investing business, that was literally the consulting I did with teams across the country, small, large. That’s what I helped them do around diverse personality groups. It was fascinating. It wasn’t just nice to have, but literally, the companies that built these teams that were diverse in personality actually got more done or more efficient, achieve their results faster. They had to work on it, but they got along really well. You can see that camaraderie.

Liz:
So, when Andresa and I started connecting, I’m like, “I got to give you this tool, because obviously, I know it so well.” But now, as we’re in the throes of even working as deep as we ever have worked together, quite honestly, even beyond the real estate projects, because those are more projects, we have really utilized that. I think about that and she thinks about that and how we can adapt. I think partners really need to go all in on these types of tools, because it makes such a difference. It really does. Not just a tolerating person, because I’m sure Andresa tolerate things that I do, a lot of them.

Liz:
I can tolerate things that Andresa does. But we now shift that, turn that over and say, “We’re going to leverage this difference. We’re going to leverage that Liz is more intuitive and subjective and can change her mind a lot. We’re going to leverage Andresa is not that way.” Okay. So, more logical and more objective, but if I don’t know that about her, that thing is going to annoy me. People leave partnerships because of personality differences, not because they’re not sometimes committed to the goal. So, I just want to reiterate that, because that tends to be… Not just like a Cosmo quiz, not just something fun to do on the weekend, but critical to your success.

Brandon:
All right. Let’s shift a little bit and go a little deeper. You find somebody you really like working with. You want to partner with them. You feel like you have complimentary and whatever the other word is, not complimentary skills. They work together, right? You want to formalize this. How do you do that? I mean, how do you decide on a structure? Is it going to be 50/50? Do you need an LLC? What’s the next step or is that the next step?

Andresa:
Well, first of all, quick disclaimer, we’re not real estate attorneys or financial advisors. So, everything that we’re sharing over here is just from our experience.

Liz:
I’m a secret attorney.

Andresa:
On the side, yeah.

Liz:
I’m a secret attorney.

Andresa:
So, it’s not like one formula fits all. Sorry to break it down, but it isn’t, right? So, there’s so many creative ways that you can come to an agreement or a joint venture or different types of partnerships, equity, debt, and then it goes on and on. I’m sure you guys have podcasts episodes that go deeper in that. The most important thing is, “What are the tasks that I’m going to be doing it right away? What is my responsibility? What are the expectations?” I’m requesting you guys to put it down, write it, what I’m expecting from the other person. Who is responsible for what? What are the compensations for that? What happens if it’s not met?

Andresa:
One of the most important clauses that you can put is if we don’t agree here, what do we agree that’s going to happen? Let’s say, if we don’t sell this house, do we agree into what if we don’t agree to a reduction? Or this rental property we did and now we’re not getting along anymore, what is the clause over here or termination or when there is a disagreement? Because if you get to the point where you are in the midst of disagreement, you don’t agree to anything. You’re just in the midst of that. So, that clause will determine, “Okay, there is a disagreement. We agreed to agree that we’re going to follow that in case of a disagreement.” That has helped a lot.

Liz:
I’d just say that what people bring to the table is accounted for of what percent they may get. I know, for one of our first projects where we partnered with one of our first private money partners, he took an active role in the company. We set up an LLC. We were 50%. He was 50%. He put the $50,000 down. We put our experience in the market and really in the area that we were investing in. He personally audited. He personally guaranteed the loan. That was a value. I had recently quit my job for the first time, a couple times. Banks really didn’t want to lend to us. We weren’t the most bankable people, right? I had just quit my job and you’re so excited. No one wants to lend to you if you don’t have the assets yet built up, which we were in that bucket.

Liz:
So, my point in saying that, that at that point, it was a 50/50 partnership, because he brought the money. He brought some expertise. He brought some time to the table and his personal guarantee. We brought a lot of other values. That was a fair 50/50. Now if you say to me, “Okay, Liz, let’s talk about that now. You’re going to go buy a property.” Well, now, someone’s experience has gone up, someone’s time has gone down, right? So, these are all pieces and levers that have to continually get evaluated to really make a fair partnership. That’s where partnerships sometimes evolve, right? He is still a private money partner in our projects now. He’s a friend and an investor. Do we go 50/50 on projects now with him?

Liz:
Well, our business structures evolved. Our business structures changed. So, those are the other things that ebb and flow as you grow and evolve and change. Those conversations on every project have to be made, because that person’s expectation was 50/50. But now you’re getting into larger buildings, well, I can’t go 50/50 with people on a 200-unit. That’s not going to work, right? It’s a different structure. So, those are important and sometimes harder conversations to have with partners that are used to one thing and now your business model has changed. So, those are all things that have to come up all the time with those people that are used to certain things, too.

David:
I would love to dig into that idea of expectation. So, Brandon hears me talk about this all the time that almost every single form of conflict is some degree of expectations that weren’t met. One way that I noticed this happens frequently is when one of the partners compares their share or their contribution against the other partners, as opposed to against if I didn’t do it at all. So, there’s many situations where one partner is bringing more value or the value they bring is more important at that stage in the process. If you’re the money person, in 2010, you were very valuable. There was deals everywhere. No one had money. In 2021, that’s not nearly as valuable. Everybody has money, right?

David:
So, 50/50 does not always make sense. I’ve noticed that if you have the money and you want to be a 50/50 partner or you used to be and now it doesn’t make sense anymore, there’s a lot of people that get hung up saying, “Well, you’re making more than me. So, I don’t like it,” versus “Well, what is my money going to do if I don’t invest it at all?” Do you have any advice for how we can handle that monster when it rears its head and says, “We’ll look at what they’re getting,” and jealousy can become a part of it?

Andresa:
Well, one of the biggest reasons why people don’t partner up is because they don’t think other people will carry the same load as them. So, they say, “I might as well do it myself.” But then you have zero freedom of time, relationships, purpose, money, zero type of financial freedom, right? As you evolve, what do I value more? I value my time more, not so much the funding or anything else. So, when it comes down to partnership, those conversations need to be done before. I think that a lot of the times, those tough conversations don’t happen, because people just are so excited to partner up and do certain things. But then later on, you resent that person or that person doesn’t even know why you’re resenting them, right?

Andresa:
So having those conversations upfront and people evolve. Their business evolve. It’s simple as, “No, it’s no longer working.” Now, we’re having a conversation of, “Are we able to adjust this or we’re going to go and part ways?” You both can create that expectations. By having an open communication, I can say things to Liz that she’s not going to like. Our relationship is very, very strong.

Andresa:
One thing that Liz always says, “We need to put money in the bank,” meaning Liz and I, relationship, we have meetings with each other. So, we trust each other to the extent that if something happened, I have money in the bank with her. She knows where I stand and vice versa. But people don’t have money in the bank with each other. What do you mean you want 5% more or 20% more or you are earning more than me? And then it becomes that competition. That doesn’t help anybody. Anything I’m missing, Liz, on this?

Liz:
No, no, that’s emotional bank account. I think it’s Stephen Covey, who first talked about that. It’s so interesting, because it’s not real, but it’s so true. The people that you have these relationships with that have been built upon. Andresa could be curt with me on a text. I’m not going to like, “We’re done. We’re never partnering again. Let’s just burn the InvestHER community, I’m done with you.” No, because we have so many deposits, but it’s when you don’t have those deposits. I mean, even last week, Andresa and I got together. It’s not convenient to get together. Her and I live an hour away. We’re bouncing a lot. Our mission is to literally empower women to live a financially free and balanced life.

Liz:
So, we both travel an hour to see each other, but that once a month face to face, Andresa and I are going to do it at Zoom. I’m like, “We’re meeting. Is that cool?” She’s like, “Yeah, we totally need it.” Because we just get so much done together in person. We chat. We talk about our lives. That is more important than tasks. That’s what business partners don’t realize enough. They put the tasks over the relationship. They wonder why they’re swarming over 5% or 10%. It’s because they’re not depositing in the relationship, especially during COVID. Who’s depositing in the relationships? With my spouse, I have to deposit into the relationship, my husband, or I’m not going to have one.

Brandon:
Do you ever have those situations, because it’s happened to me all the time, where you are friends with somebody, whether it’s a coworker, whether it’s a boss, whether it’s an employee, whether it’s a partner, whatever? When life gets digital and you start texting and there’s Slack messages or whatever you use, management software, it’s all very task oriented. You forget the very simple fact that you just like that person and then you get in person with them and you’re like, “Oh, that’s right.” All the conflicts almost all the time will go away.

Brandon:
For this reason, I live in Hawaii and BiggerPockets office is there in Denver, I deliberately go back at least twice a year, if not more. So, everyone remembers, “Oh yeah, it’s not just Brandon works in Hawaii and people give him tasks.” I get together with the team. Same with my Open Door Capital team, we get together in person, because it’s just easy to just get frustrated with people and get angry, because you just plain forget that you like-

Andresa:
Totally.

Brandon:
… those people. So, yeah, I love that point of meeting in person as much as possible.

Andresa:
One thing about communicating, I can get very, very easily on text message, but Liz and I have very clear expectations regarding communication, right? If it is a yes or no answer or confirming date or something, that can be a text. When it’s more than a paragraph, then it requires a call, right? In person is more strategic. So, we have those boundaries. I don’t text her until a certain hour and vice versa. We respect each other’s private life. But as an introvert, I go to text, but I am mindful that the relationship is always important.

Andresa:
And then if you get into only text, you are not able to build a partnership with somebody through text, right? You wouldn’t do that with my contractor or with somebody else. So, with your partner, if you’re looking to build a long term relationship with somebody, you got to either get on the call or in person, if possible, but text won’t cut it.

David:
Oh, man, that’s such a good advice. I’ve been guilty of violating that one many times. The way my brain works, once I get on something, I’ll just roll with it. I can make these very logical points in a text message that who knows how they’re being conveyed to the person reading it.

Andresa:
Exactly.

David:
There’s a really funny Key & Peele video where they’re texting each other. I think there might be some bad language in it. So, be careful when you watch it. But basically, it starts off with-

Brandon:
I’ve seen this.

David:
You’ve seen it? Hey, do you want to come hang out? And then the guy’s like, “Do I want to come and hang out?” Yes. He starts misinterpreting, “I’m at the bar.”

Brandon:
Where am I at? Yeah, at the bar.

David:
Where do you think I am? Yeah. It escalates to the point that he shows up ready to fight to the death with a weapon to kill the guy. He’s like, “Hey, you’re here. Come join the party.”

Andresa:
Exactly. So, now you guys put language barrier in it, right? I can barely speak English as you guys can tell, right? So, when Liz texts me or I text her or we have a partner and she’s like, “What do you mean?” I was like, “What do you mean, what do you mean? Of course, I mean what I wrote, right?” What I wrote does not make sense or vice versa. I’ll say, “Is she mad at me? What is she thinking?” So, all of this conversation that goes in our head, it’s not productive. We know more than two or three back and forth is a call. We’ll say, “Hey, what do you mean by that? Can you walk me through? Can you brainstorm with me? What’s going on here?” It’s funny, because we’re all guilty, especially after COVID. We’re all guilty of it.

Liz:
You don’t meet people and are like, “Here are my terms. This is how I operate and so good to meet with you.” It had to happen over time. It had to happen where we would be going back for a half hour, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth on text. We both knew that wasn’t useful, but then we’re like, “Okay, let’s stop.” That’s the other thing is there’s something we do every month, we talk about, “What can we continue doing, start doing and stop doing in working together in our business?”

Liz:
I think, again, it’s working on the business. You have to take time to do that. We put terms in place or what’s working for you. She’ll share this with me. Liz, I’m taking you out of this. It takes way too long when you’re involved, but here’s where you shine. I need that feedback or vice versa. I’m not following you on this project. She’s like, “I can really use this.” Okay, let’s do that. So, it’s really so healthy. More people need to do that in relationship.

David:
People don’t understand how important it is. That’s what I love about what’s coming out of this conversation is that when you write down, “I’m going to do this, you’re going to do this,” it seems so simple and how could it ever go wrong, but every relationship goes wrong, because emotions get involved and you don’t know what people… We always don’t account for that when we’re thinking about the partnership that that’s such a big piece. I know I don’t love meetings. I mean, I don’t think anyone likes meetings. I really don’t like them. But I found if we don’t meet every single week, the other person has resentment that starts building, frustration that’s building.

David:
Their mind starts thinking, “I should leave this partnership. I don’t want to do this thing,” or they’re waiting for me to give them direction. Something goes wrong emotionally and then the whole project torpedoes. I look back and I’m like, “That is such a dumb reason this thing didn’t work. We could have fixed that so easily.” It’s like that with our clients on the real estate team. We have a rule that you are not allowed to share bad news via text, email, anything other than a phone call. You have to be able to hear their voice and they have to hear your tone. It’s very, very important. I don’t like meetings, but I really don’t like the problem that comes from not meeting, right? It becomes this Petri dish of negativity.

David:
It’s not like I haven’t talked to this person for six months and happy thoughts grew in that place. That just isn’t the way it goes. I think that’s why it’s very important that even if it’s a short 5- to 10-minute meeting, I can tell what that person’s feeling by the tone of their voice by how excited they are when we talk. Are they keeping secrets? Are they not sharing how their day went? That’s a sign they might be upset.

David:
The same goes for them with me. If I’m not happy with their performance, they can tell. Sometimes I don’t even have to address it. Oh, David doesn’t like that I just took off and didn’t tell anybody where I was going for four days. I better not do that again. I’m curious what practices you guys have put in place to try to keep it on the calendar and keep it systematic what you’re doing.

Andresa:
Well, that’s where I come in, right? I’m all about, “How can we save time here and be more efficient?” So, processes in place, standard operating procedures. As Liz said, we meet once a month to talk strategically about, “What’s working? What’s not working?” And then we look at, “What software’s can we use here to take the human being out of the equation and just bring her expertise when it’s really needed?. So, she can shine.” I think you’re already finished, Liz, I’m not sure, but we just finished reading the book, Who Not How. Yeah.

David:
Who Not How.

Andresa:
It’s really remarkable. The shifts that we’re making and taking the tasks out of our plate, even in a different level and hiring the right people to really do what they’re good at and have more freedom of time. So, we can really focus our time in other projects that we are very passionate about.

Brandon:
Yeah, that’s really good. You mentioned earlier this idea of aligning with your partner and then keeping that open line of communication. You mentioned Who Not How. I want to bring up just two quick stories that just happened in our Open Door Capital life. So, a lot of people know Ryan Murdock. He and I started Open Door Capital together. He’s one of my best friends in the world, lives out here in Maui with me. He’s awesome, right? So, we started together. Ryan was basically a COO. He was running the company. He knew every piece of every bit that was going on in the company. I just let him run it.

Brandon:
But after six months to a year, he started just getting burned out and tired of all the work and being in charge of everything. Because we have that open conversation like sitting on my lanai or my front porch and we’re chatting all the time, we have these conversations, I got to see that happening. We are open and honest. He says, “Hey, I just don’t want to work this many hours. I want to go diving more often.”

Brandon:
Because that’s one of the downsides of partnering… I say downsides, but it’s one of the upsides and downsides of partnering with real estate investors, right? We all get into this because we read books like Rich Dad Poor Dad and we want that lifestyle. So, you partner with people who also don’t want to work. It’s just what we do, right? Everybody we work with doesn’t actually want to work so much.

Andresa:
That’s right.

Brandon:
Yeah, at least not for too long. So, anyway, but because of that, there was never the animosity. It was just hey, open conversation. So, Ryan actually stepped back from being in charge. Walker now is my COO. Ryan, we just call him mercenary. He does a lot of stuff, but he does it on his terms. It’s great. In fact, I love it. He’s happier, I’m happier, everyone’s happier about the way things run now, but that wouldn’t have been possible without that open conversation and knowing things change, agendas change, all that changes.

Brandon:
So, again, just something to think about for personalities in this industry is we’re all looking for that same thing, that financial freedom down the road. I’m not saying this is going to not work for everyone who wants to go diving, but long term, we’re not hiring people who are just content at a job for 40 years. That’s okay. That makes people, I think, work even harder in the short term so they can get the long term freedom stuff.

David:
Well, I think Liz and Andresa have both commented, you want someone with a complementary skill set. They don’t do the same task as you. You don’t want to both hate talking to contractors. But the opposite end of that is you have to have the same goal. If you’re not going in the same direction, the partnership is terrible. Oh, man, this is like gold. This is going to save people so much money and heartache just getting into this. I’ve noticed that Brandon and I tend to draw people who want to partner with us or work for us that are hoping that they can work for two years and retire and never have to work again. So, we are not actually retired and never working again. That’s why you hear our voices right now on a podcast.

David:
So, I’ve had to learn to be very careful about if this person wants to achieve financial freedom and they just want to intern for six months to learn what they’re doing, go do it and never work again, we’re not going the same direction, right? My goals are to build a very big portfolio that would allow me to become one of the top or the top real estate investing educators in the world. That’s what I want to do for BiggerPockets. So, if you come work with my company, that’s what you’re signing up for. That’s what you have to want to do too.

David:
Now, I’m very careful when people say, “I want to come partner with you. I want to come work with you. I’ll do it for free.” Are we going in the same direction? I’m curious if everyone here would mind sharing a story of a partner who was not going in the same direction with them and what the red flags were. So, that the listeners may notice it when they get in a similar situation.

Liz:
Yeah, I’ll share. We partnered with everyone early on. Matt and I would meet people at a networking event. They’d be like-

Andresa:
It’s like, “What’s your favorite color?” Blue. Mine, too. Let’s go.

Liz:
Seriously.

Brandon:
Pick them up.

Liz:
I feel like so much of what I’ve put into my relationship with Andresa and building with her has come from mistakes we’ve made in the past, right? It’s not like we’ve done it great all the time, but anyway, so many red flags. I think one of the biggest things is getting really clear on, I think, the active and passive. We talk about passive income, but we don’t talk enough about, I think, how involved they want to be or less involved. Andresa and I’ve had these conversations. It’s evolved, even in our InvestHER community and in our roles in our company, what we’re building. So, what I mean by that though is I remember a partner we met early on. We were flipping properties together. I knew personality assessments, right?

Liz:
So, here you think I’m like the queen of knowing people and figuring it out. So, over time, it just showed us that the personality was actually quite similar to Matt’s. I said, “Matt, you guys are really similar. This isn’t going to work.” He’s like, “No, no, it’s great. He talked about so many ideas.” I’m like, “Yeah, that’s a problem. Seriously, Matt, people pay me a lot of money to help them. You need to listen to me.” He’s like, “No, no, no, he’s great. He’s great. He’s great.” Matt loves everyone. Sorry, Matt.

Andresa:
Throw him under the bus.

Liz:
He’s gotten tougher over the years, but anyway. So, when he met this guy, they really just followed each other around. Six months later, he’s like, “This isn’t working. We’re really not getting anywhere. We have a lot of ideas, but no one seems to be executing.” I’m like, “Yeah, because I told you that six months ago,” but anyway. A red flag is when you’re not making progress the way you probably should and something isn’t really shifting. There’s no growth. Now, it doesn’t happen overnight, but you should see some ounces of growth. It should be like, “Okay, we’re here. Now, we’re here.” There should be some momentum on some level.

Liz:
When you have so much similarity, even though they had the same goals and had the same interest, that was all great. They were aligned, but they weren’t different enough in terms of what they were going to do and how they’re going to do it. They got each other excited, which is always a disaster. If people partners with you and they’re just like you and they’re both excitable, that’s a disaster waiting to happen.

Liz:
So, I think of that because that could have been cut down if he listened to me, but more importantly, if your wife is not an expert in personality assessments or husband, is this person so similar to me that we’re going to get in each other’s way? Something in them should rub you a little differently. Wow, this person’s not talking as much as I need them to. But they have so many other great things. They bring this to the table. We like people like ourselves. I think that’s the biggest problem. Extroverts like other extroverts quite honestly. Introverts don’t even want to talk to people until they’re really talking.

David:
That’s true. They only want to talk to people that don’t talk and they just sit there and not talk. Yeah.

Liz:
Get to the point. I’d say something and it takes me five minutes. Andresa’s just like, “I just need 10 seconds of your time,” because she’s more concise. I’m not a concise person. So, I think that’s a big thing. I think about that partnership and we could have saved a lot of time and energy if we get out of our own way and get different personalities on board.

David:
That reminds me of the scene in Lord of the Rings, where all the trees get together to talk about if they’re going to help in the battle. Meanwhile, the Earth is being scorched as they’re all just talking and deliberating over what to do. When you don’t have a decision maker, they like to do that. That’s a great point.

Andresa:
One thing that I would say is that you can spot those red flags way prior when you are having those conversations about, “Okay, what is our business plan or what is your vision and everything else?” A very quick tip that I would say is that “Did that person show up on time?” If that person was late, did that person give you a heads up? Three times in a row being late to an appointment, that tells you something that that person is going to be late in the future. If that’s not important to you, that’s okay.

Andresa:
Before a contractor, I’ll say, a contractor, if I am meeting the contractor there for an estimate and he or she is late, that’s a red flag for me, because in my head, that concept of time for that person is not important. Time inside a rehab project, it is money out of my pocket. Two weeks late, three weeks late, it is less profit. So, always think about how you’re building that foundation, even prior. How are those calls going? Are you guys getting excited? Is there any type of execution going on? Because when you have big thinkers and visionaries, they’re very low into execution. So, who in the team is going to execute? If you have only people to execute, you don’t have bigger thinkers. So, diversity is necessary.

Brandon:
Yeah, this is where the book Traction and the book Rocket Fuel, which is a sequel to Traction come in. So, I have to sit on my desk pretty much 24/7 now, because it talks so much about you need to have an integrator person, you need to have that visionary. Both roles are super, super important, because without the visionary, you spin in circles. Without the integrator, you just sit around and talk over beer and talk about how cool it’s going to be. Nothing ever gets done. Yeah, so important, so important.

Brandon:
Hey, question for you. What about when partnerships go bad? First of all, how do you prevent that? Can you prevent that? Are the things you should include in clauses and the paperwork that you put together? And then we’ll move into if they do go bad, what do you do? How do you dissolve things?

Liz:
Oh, thank you, Andresa. We’re being so nice to each other. I think about some early on partnerships. I remember just Googling partnership agreements. I think we use a few templates online, which I do not recommend. I remember that really bit us later, because we had a few properties with that partner. We just really needed to go separate ways. So, my point there is put everything in writing and then have an attorney who’s very, very schooled in that type of work, make sure they review it and say, “Okay, worst case scenario, what is going to happen?” Have that attorney push you to make sure you put everything in writing that it’s very clear. It’s painful to do this.

Liz:
I mean, I felt like in the past, that could be a part time job is reviewing agreements. It’s not something I enjoy doing. I don’t know who enjoys it, but it’s necessary and it’s important. So, bottom line is just get a third party involved in the process. Don’t be doing anything yourself or asking some Facebook community. Can you send me what partnership agreements you have? I’ll just tweak it for my needs. Don’t do that. Not smart. It’s worth the money, 500 bucks or however much it’s going to cost. Think about how much money it’s going to cost you in legal fees if it doesn’t work out, right?

Brandon:
I was going to say, one of the most impactful things ever did, one of my partnerships I had was with Mindy Jensen, host of the Money Podcast, her husband, Carl and then Ryan Murdock and I. We bought a mobile home park together out in Maine. I remember I’d never done this before, because I’ve always been the guy that just downloaded the partnership agreement off the internet thing. Anyway, so we sit down because we’re like, “This is a pretty legit amount of money that we’re putting into this thing. We’ve never worked together before.” So, we sat down and we did a conference call. It was me and Ryan in one room. An attorney was there. And then it was Mindy and Carl all on a conference call.

Brandon:
That attorney just asked us questions. It was one question to another question to another question and something I would never have thought about, just like, “Well, what happens if Mindy and Carl gets separated?” I go, “I don’t know. We never talked about that.” What happens if you and Ryan hate each other? What happens if you get sick, Brandon, and you can’t perform your duties that you said you’re going to do? Just on and on and on and on. An hour later, we were done and I felt so good and secure, because we had gone to that. We get the bill. Yeah, it was $400. I was like, “How have I not done this for every partnership I’ve ever done?” It’s such an easy and fairly low cost way to have all those things covered.

Andresa:
For those of you that are uncomfortable, having those conversations, thinking about, “Okay, what happens if I die? What happened if Liz dies? What happens if you both die at same time?”, all those conversations, there’s a book that I’ll recommend. It’s called Fierce Conversations by Susan Scott. It’s just part of doing business. If you’re concerned about your partner saying, “Why do we have a contract? Don’t you trust me? It’s my word,” I’m sorry, it’s just part of doing business. So, you can blame on that if you want.

Brandon:
You do your best to care for problems. You got the attorney stuff, but then at some point, you go, “You know what? We’re going to end this thing. I don’t like it anymore. It’s going south. I don’t like working with them. We tried. It just didn’t work out.” What do you do?

Liz:
Communication is everything, right? No one wants to go through that, right? It’s like a breakup. I mean, who wants to go through a breakup? Obviously, you learn things. You grow from it. There’s no perfect recipe for it. I’ll just say, I think especially if you’re going through it with a number of people, people have to be true to what they think what’s better for… Something that I’ve always said and my husband and I will say too in our own dealings and stuff and Andresa and I have said is, “What’s best for the business? What’s best for Liz? What’s best for Matt? What’s best for Andresa?”

Liz:
You really have to continually get really clear, especially if it’s not working out, and have honest conversations. It’s really tough, honest conversations. Don’t skirt around it. It’s not easy, but you have to face it and try to get the best outcome you can, which is ending something and hopefully remaining in relationship with the person if you want to. Sometimes people in partnerships are like, “I don’t want to see that person again.” I’ve had other partnerships that haven’t worked out that I adore the person, right? I really do adore the person. It’s just what we came together to do didn’t work out, right?

Liz:
Different partnership and we have other partners that were like, “We’re going to go sue that person, because they stole money from us.” So, there’s all varying degrees of partnerships and why things don’t work, but I think being honest with yourself, being honest with each other, doing your best, and showing up as fairly as you can without getting taken advantage is what we all can do. Being kind as well somewhere along the way too is critical, but it’s not easy. There’s always two stories of the situation, my version, Andresa’s version and someone else’s version and Matt’s version with partners we didn’t work out with our deals early on. It’s unfortunate, but we all have to face it if you’re going to be in business.

Brandon:
Yeah, it’s hard, but it’s one of those things that it comes with the territory. The way I look at that and I know you guys do as well, I want to be able to at the end of any partnership if it went bad… I’ve had partnerships go bad. I’ve had situations not work out. Well, I’ve got some that have gone bad, but mostly, it’s usually just we just find out that we don’t work well together. That’s probably the most common thing. We start to do something together and then it’s just like, “You know what? It’s just not working the way I wanted it to.” What I want to make sure and I know you guys do too is I want to make sure that I was full of integrity at every single point, so that they could never come back to me and say, “You did something wrong.”

Brandon:
Everybody, listen to this. You hold yourself to the highest standard possible. If your partner wants to be a jerk or they want to do something jerky, you can’t prevent that necessarily, but by holding the highest integrity, you’re going to get through it. You’re going to be fine and you’re going to learn some powerful lessons. In fact, almost all of my hiring and partnering lessons have come because of bad hiring and partnerships, right? That’s how you learn. That’s how you get better. It was the lessons I learned on those failed ones that allowed me to build Open Door Capital to where it is today is because of the failures and the bad partnerships. So, don’t look at it as a bad thing either.

Andresa:
Yeah, absolutely. One other thing that I will add is that in the midst of it, the ego comes into play, right? That’s where you need your core team or people that you really trust to say, “Listen, is my ego coming to play over here? Am I missing something? What possibilities we can create here to be creative?” And then both parties get out of it feeling okay about the situation and then you bounce ideas with your core team. But at the end of the day, if there’s no workability, there’s nothing personal, there’s just not workability.

David:
That’s a good point.

Brandon:
Well, as we start to wrap things up here, we’re going to head to the Famous Four in a minute. Any just final things we didn’t cover that you guys think that would help people when it comes to partnerships, whether it’s finding partners, vetting partners, setting them up? Anything you want to cover?

Andresa:
I’m just going to say stop doing things by yourself. Being a solopreneur does not give you financial freedom. There is no financial freedom without freedom of time. Once you find the right person, the right skills, and that person takes things out of your play, feels good, but feels very, very good and you just get used to it, then you don’t want to do anything. You just let other people do it. But you’ve got to start somewhere. So, start buying people’s time. Buy somebody two hours for the month. Start with two hours. Buy somebody’s time and then you can increase your capability like that.

Liz:
The answer to the thought that I had was around leveling up. The only thing we didn’t talk about was if you’re going to partner with someone, you really have to level up yourself and your own stuff, if you will. Quite honestly, it’s easier at times just to do something yourself, because you don’t have to answer to anyone. There’s no adapting. There’s no, “Let’s have a conversation. Let’s put it into writing.” I mean, it’s just easier, easier in the short term, I should say, not easier in the long term, but it wouldn’t be wonderful long term. It wouldn’t be wonderful for sustainability.

Liz:
That’s what the beautiful thing about partnerships. I’ll just say, it is like a marriage. A true partnership is like a marriage. You have to look at yourself constantly and say, “What can I be doing differently? What can I do better?” It’s not just this fleeting thing that you come together in an LLC and you think it’s going to be not that important of a thing. I take that pretty seriously. That also prevents you or encourage you to say, “Do I want to do that with everyone or a core amount?” So, constantly look at yourself in the mirror and you have to level yourself up.

Brandon:
Phenomenal information today. I love this, because again, partnerships can change lives. So, thank you guys for sharing that today. Before we move out of the show, let’s get to our last segment. That is our…

Speaker 6:
Famous Four.

Brandon:
The Famous Four is the part of the show where we have the same four questions every week to every guest. I know we’ve asked you, two, before, but maybe your answers have changed. So, let’s find out. Question number one and we’ll start with Liz, either current favorite or all-time favorite real estate related book?

Liz:
I’m going to say Cashflow Quadrant by Robert Kiyosaki. It’s their second book. I honestly think it’s my favorite, because then I think about it. I think in those terms, right? The E, the S, the B, and the I. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, read the book. But as you grow and evolve, we want to be in the I. We don’t want to be as much in the E and the S, but more on, I guess, the bottom quadrant.

Brandon:
So yeah, that book, Kiyosaki and Sharon Lechter. Did I say her last name right? I think so. Yeah, she was on your show, right?

Liz:
That’s right.

Brandon:
Just recently. So, their genius was in their ability to put these frameworks, the idea of Rich Dad Poor Dad and the idea of the quadrants and the frameworks that they’ve put. Sharon, she’s written a ton of books. She’s a master at this framework thing and why she’s such a good teacher. I’m excited. I haven’t actually listened to the episode yet, because it hasn’t come out yet of your guys’ show with her, but I know that’s out.

Andresa:
It is. Yes, people can listen to it right now.

Brandon:
Very, very cool. Where do they go for that? I know we’d probably say it again in a minute, but while we’re on the topic.

Andresa:
It’s biggerpockets.com/investher, H-E-R. You can find all our episodes there. Yeah.

Brandon:
All right. Very cool. Andresa, what was your real estate book? What would you recommend?

Andresa:
It’s not a real estate book, but it is Who Not How. I think this book-

Brandon:
Yeah, it’s so good.

Andresa:
… is having the same impact as Rich Dad Poor Dad did at the beginning of my career.

Brandon:
Yeah, we had both Ben Hardy and Dan Sullivan, the two authors of that book, on our show recently. Both of them were just incredible. That concept, Who Not How, changed my life. It’s changed your business. Yeah, it’s such a great concept. So, good recommendations. All right. David Greene, number two.

David:
I think we just covered number two, right? Didn’t we just get into business books?

Brandon:
Sort of, I guess.

David:
You got any other ones? You have another business book you like?

Liz:
I would go with, for me, Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. I mean, it’s an oldie but goodie by Stephen Covey. Again, I think of those seven habits. I mean, I read that book, probably one of the first books I’ve ever read in personal growth. It’s such an impactful book about seeking to understand and sharpening the saw. I mean, just core principles for your life and for your business that I think about.

Andresa:
I’ll share two of my latest, Great by Choice by Jim Collins and Mastering the Rockefeller Habits by Verne Harnish.

David:
All right. What about some of your hobbies?

Andresa:
Hobbies? Under COVID, there’s no hobbies. It’s like survival mode, but I really like water painting. I like to dance salsa.

Liz:
I don’t know if it’s a hobby, but I like running. I enjoy it. It’s like therapy for me. So, I really enjoy running a lot. Working on, making time for, getting back into tennis, which I really enjoy as a sport. I just actually gave a lesson to my kiddos a couple of weeks ago and they didn’t really listen to me, because I’m like, “I actually played tennis,” and they’re like, “Who cares?” I’m like, “Oh, okay, whatever,” but anyway. Yeah, I just love the sport. So, it’s a hobby I’m working on getting back into.

Brandon:
I think I’m going to get into that too. Josh Dorkin lives out here in Maui now. We’re neighbors. He goes and plays at tennis club every other day. He’s been bugging me to go. I keep going, “I don’t know,” but I love racquetball. So, probably I’ll love tennis, right?

Liz:
Absolutely.

Brandon:
Maybe.

David:
Tennis is pretty fun. Brandon, you can cover half the court with your wingspan alone. You can do two steps and you can do the whole thing.

Brandon:
This is true. This is true. I can just sit down in a lawn chair and probably beat people. That’s going to be my goal.

David:
That’s exactly right. Just switch it from right hand to left hand.

Brandon:
All right. What do you believe each… We’ll start with Andresa this time and go to Liz. What do you believe sets apart successful real estate investors from those who give up, fail, or never get started?

Andresa:
I think it’s the commitment that they have with themselves in life and just improving themselves as a person in general. There is no strategy or exit strategy that you can learn if your mind is not prepared to receive that. So, first of all, growth, for me, and the commitment to succeed is the most important thing.

Liz:
Yeah, I’d say just making time for continuous improvement. I don’t know how anyone becomes successful in this business overnight. I don’t know anyone that has, even if you buy one rental, I mean, and you want to go to two. There’s some continuous improvement that needs to happen. Not only knowing what to do, but then actually doing it. Usually, it has a lot to do with yourself and the things that are closest to you. It’s not everyone else. So, I think that’s helped me over time. Sometimes it’s tough, right? Feedback about yourself or feedback to the things you need to do, but it’s continuous improvement and really being committed to the greater goal, like Andresa said, would be for me.

Brandon:
Continuous improvement, that’s such a powerful phrase. I think you need to write a book on that someday, just like Who Not How, continual improvement, that concept, so good. All right. Well, you, two, thank you so much for joining us today. I’ll let David ask the final question, but this is great.

David:
Final question is, “Where can people find out more about you, two?”

Liz:
We’re just so excited and honored to be on the BiggerPockets Platform now in terms of our podcast. So, you can definitely check us out at biggerpockets.com/investher. That’s going to tell you a bunch about us and then direct you over our website, which is therealestateinvesther, H-E-R, .com. We have a platform, global community that we’re building to really empower women to live a financially free and balanced life. We do that through lots of different ways, through meetups and communities and membership and all that good stuff. We have more questions, right, Andresa? We have something we wanted to give.

Andresa:
Yeah, we want to give away, because Liz and I prepare a cheat sheet. Am I saying this wrong? A PDF file.

Liz:
No, you’re right.

Andresa:
I’m just going to say a PDF file, a PDF file that you guys can download with all the questions that you should ask yourself, ask your partner and get together and ask. So, you can go on therealestateinvesther.com/giveaway and download the PDF file. You can also follow us on Instagram, @therealestateinvesther.

Brandon:
There we go. Awesome, you, two. Thank you so much. Everyone, go check out the newly BiggerPockets Network podcast, The Real Estate InvestHER. You two just crushed it and we’re excited to have you as part of the podcast family over here at BiggerPockets. So, thank you.

Andresa:
Thank you so much.

Liz:
Thank you so much for having us.

David:
Thank you, guys. This is David Greene for Brandon “lawn chair tennis” Turner, signing off.

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