Liz Faircloth, CEO & Co-Founder Of The Real Estate InvestHER Community | Transforming Lives Through Real Estate

Like The Show? Leave A Rating: https://ratethispodcast.com/successstory

About The Guest

Talking Points

• 00:00 – Intro.
• 04:02 – Liz Faircloth’s Origin Story.
• 07:09 – When/Why Did Liz Start Her Real Estate Business.
• 12:05 – What Are Some Lessons That Liz Learned From Her Real Estate Business.
• 16:03 – What Does “Transforming Lives Through Real Estate” Actually Mean?
• 20:15 – Building & Scaling A Team.
• 29:30 – Finding The Right Person For The Right Team. 
• 33:00 – Why Did Liz Focus On Investors And Women Empowerment?
• 38:04 – Equity And Woman Investment.
• 40:38 – Advice For People Who Want To Build A Community. 
• 48:47 – How To Have Mission-Driven Goals?
• 51:08 – Where Do People Connect WIth Liz Faircloth? 
• 52:08 – What Was The Biggest Challenge Of Liz’s Career And How Did She Overcome It?
• 52:52 – Liz’s Mentor.
• 53:54 – A Book Or A Podcast Recommended By Liz Faircloth.
• 54:57 – What Would Liz Tell Her 20-Year-Old Self?
• 55:17 – What Does Success Mean To Liz Faircloth?

Show Links

• https://www.therealestateinvesther.com/
• https://www.facebook.com/therealestateinvesther/
• https://www.instagram.com/therealestateinvesther/

Podcast & Newsletter Sponsors

1. FACTOR – https://go.factor75.com/plans (CODE: SUCCESS120)
2. LADDER – https://ladderlife.com/successstory/
3. HUBSPOT – http://hubspot.com/successpod/

Watch on YouTube

What is the Success Story Podcast?

On this podcast, you’ll find interviews, Q&A, keynote presentations & conversations on sales, marketing, business, startups, and entrepreneurship.

The podcast is hosted by entrepreneur, business executive, author, educator & speaker, Scott D. Clary.

Scott will discuss some of the lessons he’s learned over his own career, as well as have candid interviews with execs, celebrities, notable figures, and politicians. All who have achieved success through both wins and losses, to learn more about their life, their ideas, and insights.

He sits down with leaders and mentors and unpacks their stories to help pass those lessons onto others through both experiences and tactical strategy for business professionals, entrepreneurs, and everyone in between.

Website: https://www.scottdclary.com

Podcast: https://www.successstorypodcast.com

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/scottdclary

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/scottdclary

Twitter: https://twitter.com/scottdclary

Facebook: https://facebook.com/scottdclarypage

LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/scottdclary

Medium: https://medium.com/roi-overload

Newsletter : https://newsletter.scottdclary.com/

Machine Generated Transcript

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

people, podcast, women, investing, community, investors, real estate, money, property, building, partner, grew, business, team, serving, real estate investor, literally, meetups, multifamily, short term rentals

SPEAKERS

Liz Faircloth, Scott D Clary

Scott D Clary  00:37

Welcome to success story, the most useful podcast in the world. I’m your host, Scott D. Clary. The success story podcast is part of the HubSpot Podcast Network. The HubSpot Podcast Network has incredible podcasts like the salesman podcast hosted by wil Baron. Now if you work in sales, you want to learn how to sell or you want to peek at some of the latest sales news and insights. You need to listen to the salesman podcast. The host will Baron help sales professionals learn how to find buyers and win big business in effective and ethical ways. If you think any of the following topics resonate with you, you’re gonna love the show, how to find and close your dream job and sales 12 essential principles of selling digital body language, how to have better zoom sales meetings, or how to tell a remarkable sales story. If these are topics that would interest you. Go check out the salesman podcast wherever you get your podcasts or at hubspot.com/podcast Network. Today, my guest is Liz Faircloth. She is the co founder of the DeRosa group. She is the co founder and CEO of the real estate investor community, co host of the real estate invest her podcast and author of the recently published book, only woman in the room knowledge and inspiration from 20 successful real estate women investors. Just to give you an idea of what she’s built. The DeRosa group controls $60 million worth of residential commercial assets up and down the East Coast. The real estate investor community is an enormous community. Her show is one of the top 25 Investing shows globally. It’s one of the top 50 Business podcasts and shows globally. It’s part of the bigger pockets Podcast Network, which is one of the largest podcast networks with over 110 million collective downloads. So she’s built an incredible real estate company, an incredible community and incredible podcast, we spoke about her origin story, founding the DeRosa group with her husband Matt in 2005, scaling it to a rental portfolio of over $16 million, some of the lessons that she’s learned. So if you have invested in real estate, or if you ever want to invest in real estate, which anybody listened to this show, even if you don’t want to be a real estate investor, you should learn how to invest in real estate from the best. So if you have gotten in or you’re looking to go in at some point in your life, she teaches you some of the lessons that she’s learned how to find the best deals commercial versus residential, how to raise money so that you aren’t putting your own money into real estate deals. And then, of course, how to scale your portfolio. And also why sometimes realtors can make the best investors. So if you are a realtor, if you have your real estate license, that’s also an interesting point to just listen to. We also spoke about the investor community. So she has a mission to transform lives through real estate. She’s stood behind that mission and use that mission to drive everything she does. This is why she built the community. This is why she built her podcast, which is a highly successful podcast as well as why she wrote her book. So we spoke about community building, how to build a proper community, how to build a mission driven community, how to set up the community, so that they all support each other so that they learn from each other and that it fosters growth for community members, which ultimately will build the community and help your business help your brand help your name, but most importantly, help the people that you’re trying to serve. So a lot of great investing and real estate investing tips, a lot of great community building tips. She also spoke about her podcast, her book and what she’s done to launch these assets against her community. And if you do have a personal brand or business you can learn some lessons there. So let’s jump right into it. This is Liz Faircloth. She is the co founder of the DeRosa group she is the co founder CEO of the real estate investor community. She’s a published author and she’s a co host of the real estate invest her podcast and show

 

Liz Faircloth  04:40

so Hey, Scott um so a little bit about myself. You know, in terms of like where I grew up I grew up in New Jersey you know as a jersey girls, I live in Pennsylvania now so I’m not a Jersey girl anymore, but I think I’m just have it in my blood and actually got my school I got my training in psychology I wanted to be I was a psych major in college and then I want to To be a social worker, so I wanted to get my I was very focused on getting my license, Master’s degree in social work, and opening a practice in counseling people. And it’s funny because during that time, I took a, I was at the University of Pennsylvania. And there’s two interesting like pivots that happened during that time, because I was really focused on on opening a practice. My brother in law, who was literally the only entrepreneur I knew, ever gave me Rich Dad, Poor Dad, and I was, you know, 21. And he said, You have to read this book, and I’m like, okay, um, you know, if you say so, and I like personal development books. So it wasn’t that weird. But that really opened my eyes to you know, so many things I wasn’t familiar with, you know, passive income and entrepreneurship and having money work for you. And just things I wasn’t even raised to even have any realm of possibility, simultaneously, while I was at the school at University of Pennsylvania, so I was literally at the best business school. Wharton, now wasn’t going to get my MBA. But I was literally like, it was the school social work. And right next to it was this was the Wharton School, which was like an enormous, beautiful building. And the poor school of social work building was like this older, like one of the oldest buildings on campus. So we don’t have to get into that dichotomy. But anyway, while I was there, I met my my advisor, I said, Hey, I want to take an entrepreneur class, because I read this book, and I’m like, I don’t know anything about this. And she’s like, why you’re in the School of Social Work. And I’m like, I just really moved to take a class. I’m here at University of Penn for only two years. So I did. And I took a class on starting a business and the business I started 20 years ago, was a was a was a business about helping women and empower women. And at the time, it was focused on their mental health, because that’s the that’s the work I was I was involved in, but I wanted to create an organization to support women and empower them. So literally, 20 years later, right, I actually started an organization that a company for women, but I think that’s interesting. And then that that whole experience, I ended up getting a sales job consulting slash sales job after grad school to learn the ropes like Rich Dad, Poor Dad talks about if you if you want to be an entrepreneur, you need to learn how to sell. And so I didn’t end up opening a practice or actually even using my master’s degree in social work. Technically, I think I am, I think on my schooling and my way of being as a social worker,

 

Scott D Clary  07:21

it always it always permeates somehow everything does and I feel like I

 

Liz Faircloth  07:25

am you know, but I in terms of like, what most of my all of my classmates are doing. Yeah, I’m not the traditional but. But anyway, that’s kind of what prompted me to do the work I was doing at the same time I was in I started investing and we bought our first property and, and we’re focused on multifamily syndications now. But yeah, so that’s just a little bit about how I started in some of the seeds that were born there.

 

Scott D Clary  07:45

I see. So you see, it’s so funny, like when you when you walk back through someone’s life, and you see all these different seeds that have now led to like who they are today. But every everything, like every single thing that you’ve done in your life has found a way to manifest in like you quite literally your current, you know, your current initiative, your current vision, your mission, whatever you want to call it. So walk me through even like the start of your real estate career, because I would say like that, real estate is obviously a core component of your persona, like who you are. And that started probably with Rich Dad, Poor Dad, you said you you bought your first duplex. So what was that process? Like getting into the financial independence game?

 

Liz Faircloth  08:25

Yeah, we knew nothing about it. When we were in our 20s me, my husband, boyfriend at the time. And you know, we’d get together and start dating and I’m like, You got to read Rich Dad, Poor Dad. And it’s funny because people were like, oh, did not get you in real estate. I’m like, now I got him involved in real estate. But I gave him the Rich Dad, Poor Dad. And he was like, his mind was blown too. And just, you know, very open to that. We ended up taking about a year of courses. We went to the local RIA meetings, that’s really it was dig. They’re still an organization, really good organization. And every Guru Guru in town came, you know, Colton sheets, like old school, right? Nothing was online, they gave you these binders, right. So I’m, I’m dating myself. And anyway, you know, we learned a lot and then a year end we, one of the strategies was to call for an ads. And they said, go around call for an ads. And if it’s a duplex, literally half their property’s vacant and they might be motivated to sell. So that was the strategy. We did a lot of cold calling. We walked around neighborhoods knocked on doors. I mean, we literally did everything that they said to do right. Got door slammed in our face. And that’s what we did every weekend together while we were dating, so we found our first duplex and because of a for rent, and and we didn’t have the money to buy it. So we my father loaned us about $30,000 and that that kind of took care of the downpayment property was about 150,000 little row home in Roxboro, right outside of Philadelphia, and 15,000 was about rehab and 15 was was the down payment, and so on. You know, wrote up an agreement, I paid him I think 6%, which is really amazing interest and started our journey. And that just kind of got us in the game, we learned a lot. And then really focused on growing our business in New Jersey, and really got our focus on Trenton, New Jersey in particular, it’s really bought all of our initial properties. And then kind of grew from there for other other markets, other regions, but we’re always about like, how do we make a difference, and also, you know, make money. And so our motto is always transforming lives through real estate. We did it in Trenton initially, and then we kind of expanded that and working with our investors and just trying to do good, do good things and also make make money. So that was kind of always what we wanted and had done in 15, what 16 years of investing and building a business. But you know, it wasn’t a it wasn’t a direct, you know, path, if you will, there was a lot of ups and downs, a lot of learned lessons. A lot of you know tough things that happened over the years. But

 

Scott D Clary  10:59

I just want to take a second and thank the sponsor of today’s episode factor. Now it’s a new year, I’m busy, I always, always, always am running out of time. So when it comes to meals, I don’t want to wait in line at a grocery store. I don’t want to even have to drive if I don’t have to. And I definitely don’t want to spend a ton of time cooking in the kitchen. But now I don’t have to meal plan or prep thanks to factor factor makes it easy for me to eat clean 24/7 They deliver fresh, never frozen prepared meals that are so delicious, you won’t believe they’re actually good for you factor saves time by delivering chef crafted meals directly to my door, eliminating the hassle of grocery shopping, meal prep, but most importantly, eliminating the hassle of cleaning. And I have 27 meal options every single week. So I can guarantee you’re not going to be bored. They also offer tons of great nutritional additions, they have vegan and veggie meals, they have cold pressed juices, smoothies, energy bites, plant based bars, extra protein, veggie sides, and what really whatever you want to keep you fueled and focused all through the day, if you want to try out factor, they’ve set up a special code just for success story podcast listeners. So head over to go dot factor 70 five.com/plans That is go dot factor 70 five.com/plans. Use the code success 120 That’s going to give you $120 off your first five weeks of meals. Remember that is code success 120 at go dot factor 70 five.com/plans for $120 off. So as you as you grew this portfolio, walk me through the growth of the portfolio, maybe some of the lessons that you learned when you’re first getting into the market. Because I think obviously, if anybody’s listening to this, and they’re listening to you buying your first duplex, that’s the step that they haven’t taken it, they maybe want to take, they want to start investing, getting into the market, if there are some tenured real estate investors here, I’m sorry, I’m just I’m just generalizing. But I would say people want to take that first step and then grow that portfolio. Even if, for example, they are working a job and they don’t want to go into real estate full time just yet. So what are what are some of the lessons that you’ve learned? As you?

 

Liz Faircloth  13:19

Yeah. What was that that was one of the big things that we did early on, Scott was, at the time that we bought, we started buying property, and we did whatever we could to figure out how to finance properties, right? It wasn’t like we were just sitting on all this cash, we were in our 20s we didn’t have much money, quite honestly, and just kind of figured it out. So we were doing a lot of different things. Active, you know, active projects hold everything, literally under the sun doing some flips. And so, you know, in hindsight, right, had we just focused on multifamily, because that was our first deal. And we did well with with that first duplex had, we just focus on that niche, I just did that. I think our trajectory would have been different. I don’t wanna say better, because I think we are who we are. And I think our path is our path. And I think it adds a lot of color to our story. But we got involved in flips, we got involved in buying a commercial building, we got involved in raw land. We were all over the place, quite honestly. So I don’t I don’t know if most people would do that. I would hope they don’t do that. But we were also pretty young. And I think some being a little naive and being a little bit of a risk taker and saying what’s the worst that can happen? Not having much to lose? You do things like that, quite honestly. I mean, you know, and what I do that now in my 40s No, obviously, I become more in a lot of ways. My husband I’ve grown significantly but we actually become more conservative, right? We’re a little smarter, a little more, less naive. So couple learn lessons to his his market. You can only participate in a market. You can’t change a market. And that was a learn lesson for us because markets are everything. And so many times people get involved in investing and Get so fixated on the property is so fixated on knowing everything about that one property. Yet, when you ask them questions about the market, or the area, they just can’t answer them. And I think if you’re going to know a lot about something know a lot about the market versus the deal, or the property itself. You want to know but a lot about both, to be honest, of course. But it’s so many times that this pendulum is so much on the the the deal versus the market. So didn’t know that the beginning, we were so focused on the property, oh, we can renovate this, this is really cheap, we can really make this amazing. And we really want to make a big difference in Trenton. And we were so optimistic and we are still we’re still actually building a 40 unit building there. So we’re still active investors there. But you can’t change the whole market. And I think that’s that was one of the biggest learning lessons is that when we go into new markets, we’re like, Where can we participate? Where’s this like an up and coming market? Where’s the some? Is there affordable housing here? Not affordable housing in a technical sense, but are people able to afford where they live? Is their movement coming here? Supply Demand, jobs, growth, all the things that are so important, none of which we were even considering? Quite honestly, when we started, we were just like, can we make a difference and make a big, you know, make Is there a lot of properties to buy that we can renovate? Well, the check those two boxes. But in hindsight, we were a little more optimistic because we thought we can make a bigger difference than we actually could. Because you just can’t change a whole city, you can’t just change a whole area unless, you know, you have billions of dollars, which is awesome. We don’t and we didn’t so so anyway, that’s a big learning lesson. And it’s something we take into all of our investments now.

 

Scott D Clary  16:40

And when you say and I’m just curious, because you mentioned before about you sort of like your your mission, as you go as you grew your real estate portfolio, you did say you want to transform lives through real estate. And you mentioned a few times. So what is transforming lives through real estate actually mean because people just think, oh, I want to get into real estate. I don’t want to I want to transform my life. I just, that’s that’s the first life I want to transform. But how do you actually how do you actually action that and maybe people that are going to investing? Maybe you can think of more than just a selfish reason day one, because that’s an interesting, I’ve never spoken to a lot of real estate people, and I’ve never heard them say that they’re very tactical, they’re very tangible. I want you know, if you have this, you can make this, you know, monthly recurring revenue on this property or whatever, you know, the short term rentals and, and that’s like a financial incentive or financial game, what is transforming lives mean to you?

 

Liz Faircloth  17:31

Yeah, and, you know, it’s a good question. I mean, I, again, my background, social work, right. So the idea of making a difference in making money was really important to both me and my husband, I think tangibly what it means. And there’s so much research that shows this too, is it this whole idea of like businesses being socially responsible, right, and it’s a catchphrase now. And quite honestly, people are just like, oh, we do good. We do good work we give back, because they just want to look good. We started when we had nothing with that vision, quite honestly, it wasn’t to look good. It was really because it’s part of our values. So what does that look like? You know, you have to really look at who your customers are. And so many people don’t know who they’re serving. And so if you’re in service to other people, and you’re growing an investment portfolio, I don’t see how you can do that. I don’t see how you can have strong a strong investment in real estate, a property that’s thriving, and not being service to those people, like I don’t, I don’t know many investors. And maybe they just don’t think in that term that way, when they just look at the income and expenses and NOI and all the good stuff we have to look at as investors, but if you’re actually not treating those customers, tenants, residents, whatever they’re, you know, whomever you write, I like residents because it feels it feels a little more like they’re your customer. You know, you have to play that, that that are in that arena of, you know, how do we serve them, of course, having rules and policies and procedures, we used to give welcome baskets. I mean, my husband and I went above and beyond, you know, early on. We were like we’re not making any money here, we get to scale back a little with our welcome baskets, because they’re a little above and beyond, there’s always those ideas of serving our tenants. We always we’ve been building, buying more property with investors, right with passive investors. We started in 2000 Oh, my, you know, parents and close family were our first but but in terms of non family was really 2010 We have over 200 investors now, right? That’s a huge customer of ours. We’re serving them. So how do we do that? You know, that that’s how you were transforming their lives. We didn’t investor tell us the other day. We’re selling a building and with the they’re doubling their money and with that money, his wife is gonna be able to retire. Like that’s transformation. Like that’s me, you know,

 

Scott D Clary  19:43

really? Transformation life change.

 

Liz Faircloth  19:46

Yeah, it’s true transformation. So it’s, I think when we, when we get out of ourselves, and go into other people and who you’re serving investors, tenants, we have a lot of commercial tenants. Businesses have started and thrived in our buildings. That’s true. formation, you know, we’ve cleaned up blocks, and especially in Trenton, where, you know, we have buildings on one one street where there’s a pharmacy on the, it was a dilapidated building that you know, just had trash in front of it. Now it has a pharmacy and has three tenants. That’s transformation, in my opinion. So yeah, it’s really like those, those very specific ways that you’re, you’re using real estate and its highest and best use for whom you’re serving. And you’ll be able to make the profits accordingly. I don’t know how to do I don’t know how to do one or the other. Now, I’m not saying all of our properties have always done both, because

 

20:37

no matter how the last game went, anytime you take the field, you’ve got a shot at greatness. Give your team the best shot at winning, by recruiting more mbps with indeed, if you’re hiring you need indeed, because indeed is the hiring partner where you can attract, interview and hire all in one place. start hiring right now with $75 sponsor job credit, upgrade your job posts at indeed.com/blue wire offer valid through March 31. And indeed, is the only job site where you’re guaranteed to find quality applications that meet your must have requirements, or else you don’t pay, go to indeed.com/blue wire to claim your $75 credit before March 31. One of the things I love about indeed is that it makes hiring all in one place so easy, and indeed delivers four times more hires than all other job sites combined according to talent, nest indeed.com/blue, wire Terms and Conditions apply, need to hire you need, indeed,

 

Liz Faircloth  21:47

you can do one or the other, you can transform people’s lives and not make any money. And you can make money. And eventually you’re going to it’s going to catch up where you’re just not serving who you’re serving. So I you know, I think when you put those two together, everyone will benefit. You know,

 

Scott D Clary  22:03

I love that. And what I’m trying to do is I’m trying to pull out things that I’ve I noticed that are very, not entirely unique to you and what you do, but I think that they’re unique enough in the real estate game, or they’re unique that many people don’t talk about them. So I love that. And by the way, I think I’m in agreement with that. And I think that’s actually very important, because I think that actually drives you to do better work to operate at a more ethical high level, which I think is good for any industry. But I think that that’s probably why you’ve been so successful, because you do have that vision from day one. So that’s sort of like the, the lesson that I’m trying to impart on people is to, don’t go into things for the wrong reasons. Like maybe if you are going to be going into the business of, you know, owning things that people live in, it shouldn’t just be to fund your own retirement, I think there’s probably a better a better reason to go into it. One thing that you speak about a lot as well, which again, I don’t speak I don’t hear people in real estate speak about this. That often is teams, I think that’s an interesting component. And I’ve heard other shows, saying that it’s virtually impossible to scale without the right team in place. So first of all, how do you find the right team? What’s, what’s your formula for that? And also, why is it more difficult to scale without a team if I just to myself, if I have investors, if if I have like a mortgage broker, if I have a real estate agent, or like, I could be the real estate agent myself, why can’t I just have like a small few people that I can rely on?

 

Liz Faircloth  23:30

Yeah, so for us, so a couple things when I, my husband, I decided to he quit his job, I’m just gonna bring you back to just why I know a lot about this topic. He quit his job. At the same time, we got married literally the same month 2005 We’re like, get married, and he quit his job. He’s like, I’m doing this full time. Like, yeah, you do a full time, like, making no money anywhere. It’s just funny what, you know, you think about hindsight. But anyway, at the same time, I got a job in consulting, and what the work I did was I was and I stayed there for a decade as I as we grew our business, and we grew our portfolio, I was you know, you know, paying our bills and allowing us to keep investing in our business. So, so anyway, long story short, I did consulting in I was I was an expert in a personality assessment called the predictive index. So it’s basically a measurement of people’s kind of natural tendencies, their natural behaviors. So what I did across the country, and I had a lot of, you know, clients, small and large, was basically I did consulting around putting the right teams together, right, and counseling, the CEOs and leaders, how they can manage people how they can put the right people in the right seat, based on personality, and everything. So that was just the context I came from for over a decade. So as I talk about this, that’s, you know, where that kind of comes from. Now then to combine that with what I know in real estate and how important it is that to have teams. What really got us moving in that direction. was we made a team local And we were managing everything ourselves over 100 units in the New Jersey area. And we bought our first kind of like at a state, hour and a half away property, which was in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. So we started to learn the power of scaling, but not being able to do everything ourselves. And so at the time, you know, that’s what really caused us as we start to move out of state, we needed to build like, you know, virtual virtual teams where we’re not going to see them all the time or not be with them all the time. But you can apply this when you have teams in place. I would say there’s three pieces of like, you know, who not How’s a great book right now, where, you know, I know a lot of people have been reading by Dan Sullivan, about I want to accomplish this. And we think how versus who? So the first question is Who but to get even more refined there? What skills do they need? What experience do they need? And what type of personality do they need? And most people think about skills and experience, even if you wanted to hire a VA, or just even a mortgage broker, right? Think about that, or, or a commercial broker, we often think Do they have the experience to be someone I can use is on my team. And often people forget that how important it is to have diversity of personality. I did an exercise when I did team buildings and stuff, I did an exercise and I put all the same personality style together. And then I would put different types of teams together because I guess this is a statistically driven graph. So I can see I have 10 people I know who the extroverts are, I know who the you know, the dominant people are I know, you know, I know that. So I always was very mindful of that. And I put these teams together well, you know, who usually got the activity done the fastest.

 

Scott D Clary  26:39

It was never diverse, it was a very diverse group of multiple personalities, I’m assuming

 

Liz Faircloth  26:44

Yes, and no. So the worst performing group, and the best performing group was the diverse groups, okay, ones that were the ones that were similar kind of always just, you know, the dominant people, no one listened. The the really quiet, people were all just looking at each other, and no one was really jumping in, it was a disaster. But the best performing team was diverse. So they had different styles. It’s like a task person and an extrovert. But the worst performing team, when you don’t value diversity, you can kind of go like this, you think about people that are very different from you, you don’t naturally attract to them, you know, networking event, so. So if you don’t know that, and don’t appreciate it, and leverage the difference, that’s the rub, in a sense, and that’s what will prevent you from really optimizing. So it’s one thing to have different personalities on a team. And it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s going to guarantee you success. So that’s the kind of work that I did. And that’s the kind of work that we’re very mindful of, especially as we’ve grown our multifamily team. And also I apply this with, with building our invest her team, because we have, you know, start with me and my partner. So the biggest thing though, is we do like people like ourselves, just, we’re just naturally inclined, if you’re an extroverted outgoing person, and you go to an event, especially now people are, you know, doing more and more and like, we finally get interact. You’re going to like people like yourself, and those are never the right partners, for you, quite honestly. They’re usually the ones that you like, but then you’re like, you know, too, too, too much the same. So again, I can’t value that I can’t stress that enough is that most people devalue personality, they think it’s just said something nice to have something nice to know. And then they look at skills and experience. And the reason why people don’t work is usually because of personality. It’s usually because of behavior. So we don’t value it, we don’t even look at it. But yet, it’s the reason that people usually don’t work together very well, or stay together very well thrive together. Because we don’t want to tolerate people. I mean, who wants to tolerate people, you’re going to thrive with people, right? I mean, and that’s what, that’s what I’m very mindful of, and I’m not perfect at it, you know, and my own personality traits that I have to work on. And what I learned a lot like me and my husband are very similar. So when we work together, I can’t just work side by side with my husband, because we’re so similar. It’s like redundancy, quite honestly. So I’m like, so when I found on Jessa, and we start building out our investor group in our community, it was refreshing because she’s very different personality to me than me. So it didn’t feel redundant. It didn’t feel like so. And I think about that I didn’t realize this for many years. I’m married to my husband. I mean, I know him very well. So anyway, that’s a few thoughts, their skills, and personality.

 

Scott D Clary  29:25

I just want to take a second to thank the sponsor of today’s episode ladder. Now, over the past two years and a bit I’m sure we’ve all realized that how precious and fragile life can be in the last thing that you want to be worried about when something horrible happens is how you’re going to afford it. And that’s why I am a firm believer in life insurance so that if something does happen, you’re not passing those costs on to your kids, your family. Now if you’re asking yourself, How do I find affordable Long Term coverage? How do I find affordable monthly that can protect my family from anything that happens Well, the answer to that question would be ladder because if you wait longer life insurance does cost more money. So when you set Term coverage, when you’re young, you can get incredible coverage for a relatively low price and ladder is 100% Digital, so no doctors no needles, no paperwork, when you apply for $3 million or less, you can just do it online need a few minutes phone and a laptop to apply. Ladder smart algorithms work in real time. So you’ll find out if you’re instantly approved. If you prefer to talk to somebody, they also do have a team of licensed agents, they don’t work on commission. So they’ll help you, they won’t upsell you, there’s no hidden fees, you can cancel at any time. And you can get a full refund. If you change your mind in the first 30 days. And ladder policies are issued by insurers with long proven histories of paying claims. They’re all rated a and a plus bY am best. So finally, ladder is offering an option for people that want to protect their family that want to start getting behind life insurance at a younger age. So if you want to see if you’re instantly approved, you can go to ladder life.com/success story, you’ll see if you’re instantly approved. That is the ladder La dee dee, our life.com/success story. That’s ladder life.com/success story. I think it’s really interesting. And I’m just I want to just ask one more question on this on this because I see that a lot of companies that that happens a lot where they’re like, oh, you know, we want a cultural fit. And they confuse cultural fit with we’re just hiring somebody the same. And I always challenge that and say you don’t want somebody who just fits the existing culture but augments and adds on to it. That’s a true cultural fit. So when somebody augments or adds on by definition, they’re bringing something new to the table that isn’t already there. So, but to double down on your point where you had these two separate groups, where one was all diverse individuals and personalities, that didn’t work. And then one was, when you’re looking for a partner, or you’re looking for a member of the team? How do you figure out if that person will detract or augment that will add on to who you are?

 

Liz Faircloth  32:03

I, you know, let’s let’s go with partners, right? Because partners are like it’s a business marriage, right? It’s a little deeper than say someone who’s going to be a mortgage broker? Yeah, I don’t know if I would put those on the same level of intensity. So let’s go down the partner path. When you have somebody that’s very different. I’m, I’m much more, obviously give you some examples. Because I think we know we know this, we learn best by like stories. So I’m much more extroverted. I like people, I trust people naturally, again, that’s gotten me to trouble right? Every strength overuse becomes a weakness. But anyway, I you know, I have tons of ideas, I love building relationships, that’s something a strength of mine, right? That’s who I want to be who I am. My partner on dresses, specially is much more task oriented. She’s much more strategic, much more analytical, she’s much more logical, and much more subjective. So while that’s a great complimentary match, we, we have different ways of approaching things will show it will hurt, I will interact. And when we’ve had breakdowns, if you will, show give me some information. And, and I’m thinking in between the lines, and I’m reading between the lines, and she’s literally just telling me something, right. So we’ve had to work through that. So the way you go from the best performing team, or the worst performing team with, because you can have two people like us, who, over time, just say we can’t work together anymore. So her and I though when we started, we value the same things. We also are very into growth, and we’re able to come together and every time we have a breakdown, we have a breakthrough as a partner partnership, because we really want to create a culture of everything’s okay, perfect. We’re growing with a lot of things going on, we started this as a passion, now it’s a business, all of our roles are shifting, like it’s a lot happening, right in a few years that we’ve been in existence. So we have very open and honest conversations, and we’re able to both take responsibility for where we can get better. So every time we have a breakdown, we have, we put a new something in place a term or a boundary, or, Hey, this is what I really need from you. If you don’t have that with a partner, it’s just not gonna, it’s just not going to work or you’re not going to have like a high performance team. That’s my opinion, you’ll have a okay partnership, and maybe you’ll make a lot of money together or not. I don’t know. But I think that’s the difference is open communication, being willing to grow and learn together. And it’s hard, right? I mean, like, think about it, it’s like, who wants to, like, look at themselves in the mirror all the time, right, everyone, we all think we’re all great all the time, you know, um, but that’s where growth happens, you know, and that’s where you’re able to, like, you know, I could be doing this better, you know, what do you need for me? What do I need from you? So,

 

Scott D Clary  34:46

good advice. Okay. Let’s, let’s move on to investor because that’s the, that’s where you’re at right now. With the podcast. Obviously, it’s a I think it’s a combination of, it seems like women empowerment Real Estate Investing like everything you’ve done over your life, you decided to do a show or build a brand around it. So walk me through the process, the thought process. Why did you want to do investor? Why did you want to focus on women empowerment and investing? What was what was your process for that?

 

Liz Faircloth  35:15

Yeah, sure. So, so to see, about six years ago, I met my partner now and Jessa, and became really good friends with her, you know, and her husband, and we would, and we then partner on some deals. So we started as friends, as they say, started to get to know each other, we actually started a women’s mastermind long before investor. So we both were always very pulled to bring women together to support each other and have each other’s back. So that was always something that we both valued. And then we started partnering together on some flips, and some new construction projects in Philadelphia, they were local to Philadelphia, and we were in in New Jersey at the time. So we really got a chance to partner on a number of projects together. And we get together talking about these projects mean on Dressen. And almost we’d have our own little mastermind. And we would just always say over, we’ll be talking about kids or you know, just had a lot on our plates, or just the things that you know, we were experiencing, and we we don’t want to like where there are other women like us, you know, and I There are women, but we’d love to, like create something where where we can really bounce things off of each other and bring other women together. And you know, especially women that are that are new or experienced, everyone can give something everyone can get something as That’s my philosophy. So we googled it. And we really couldn’t find much we couldn’t find many groups, we couldn’t find many resources at the time. And we were both very like, from different reasons, very passionate about seeing women become financially independent. And and, you know, now that I’m in this space of, you know, thought leadership and women and investing that statistics and the information out there is crazy like women, number one women outlive men, six to seven years, right? So if you’re in a traditional relationship, not saying everyone has Viren traditional relationship, you’re going to outlive your spouse. Right? In so in a sense. So the need for financial resources becomes even more important. You know, and that’s number one, number two, statistically, and this I think, wealth simple, I forget the source, but they said that women outperform men, as investors by 40%. So when women invest, they actually do very well, they tend to be a little more conservative, they may not jump in as fast, but there’s a conservativeness. But once they do it, they’re out there the they pick the right investments. So then the next the next part, those women invest less than then by 40%. So for every man that’s investing, women are doing it a lot less. So for those reasons, just the Okay, women are gonna outlive men. When they invest, they do it so well. Yet, we’re just not doing it enough. So what why is that? I mean, again, I’m not here to solve the whole problem. There’s a lot smarter people than me to do all that. But what I can say, now that we have a community and we have a membership, and we have a podcast, highlighting women’s stories, and their journeys, and having a community that they feel safe to ask questions and get support in the way they need to get support. I know there’s going to be important. You know, Scott, I didn’t know if a lot of women needed this. I know, I wanted it. I know and Jessa did, and we both were experienced investors, but the amount of women who just feel so comfortable. We have 9000 women in our Facebook community, you know, and our podcast has over 200 episodes, and we have meetups and we have 52 meetups across the country where women are coming together to support each other. So there is a need and there is a there’s an important kind of niche that we’ve filled in the we’re filling. And I think it’s not everyone can understand it. I have I have women, especially women don’t see the need for our for our community. You know, actually men are more supportive. And sometimes, and most most women are very supportive. I don’t mean to say but there are certain women and I’ve gotten the feedback, they don’t see the need. And I always say back to that is that there is a need. Because we want to see women keynoting more we want to see women not just on panels, and we want to just be asked about how is it to be a woman in investing, you know, like, it’s, it’s, that’s not the right conversation. I thought it’s a bad one. But it’s all about like seeing yourself and other people getting the confidence, getting the clarity, getting the support and then going and making it happen with men, women, anywhere. It’s not like we just have to create this little secret society and we have a lot but never talk to men. You know, that’s just weird, right? That doesn’t happen. So anyway, that’s that’s the reasoning. That’s the really the, the, the kind of the motivation for us.

 

Scott D Clary  39:52

And no, I was just gonna say, Well, I think that if you look at just the data points obviously required it’s obviously needed. If you’re saying that Women are investing up to at least 40% less than men, it just seems like it’s like it’s education, making somebody feel like, psychologically safe to do something to feel okay, doing something. I think that it’s it’s important. And I think that, you know, any any initiative that builds a community around at the supports that like we’re not, we’re not there where it’s an irrelevant community, like we’re not at the point where, you know, we have data points, obviously, are quite obvious, we haven’t reached parity in everything that we do. So until that’s until we’re at that point, we still have to build community to support this. I think that’s probably an incredible initiative that you’re doing right now, even like the book that you wrote, it also focuses on that, I think a lot of it is just normalizing. It’s just all about normalizing. So if somebody has an investor doesn’t know somebody that invest like they’re less likely to invest. So if they see people that are out there that are successful women that are investing groups of women that are incredibly successful investing, that’s just going to like enable that enable that behavior, enable that mindset, and then everybody wins at the end of the day. That’s actually incredible. I didn’t know the stat that they do 40% They do 40% Better, which I’m assuming could be tied to some sort of, like less emotional investing. Because I could see, I can totally see that.

 

Liz Faircloth  41:20

Yeah, I think it’s more conservative to where some people who are, you know, if you think about like, certain again, not all women are conservative, but they conservatively invested. There’s a piece to that. So they’re slower. But yet when they do it, it’s the right because they thought about it, they’ve you know, you know that Another interesting statistic, but short term rentals and Airbnb, 55% are female. So you see the pendulum different in that niche. And then you think about why that is. And it’s just, that’s neat, you know, because so many shares service. It’s, it’s, you know, in just interesting, it’s an interesting statistic in there. I mean, think about that niche right now, right? I mean, everyone, especially since COVID. Everyone in the real estate investing world, especially if you’re multifamily or anything, you’re like, I gotta buy short term rental, I can’t do it. I gotta get a vacation. I don’t like, I feel that too, you know, in some ways of being in the market. So. But yeah, I was talking with a few people. I think it was Avery Carl, who just wrote a book for bigger pockets. And she said, You know, it’s 55%. I said, that’s, that’s pretty cool.

 

Scott D Clary  42:24

That is very good. Can I Can I ask? Just advice for people that want to build a community because you’ve also done a great job at that. So you started this podcast after a very successful real estate career. And now it’s part of bigger pockets. And now you have a book and now you have a community of 9000 people on Facebook. So how did you do that? I’m gonna take notes for me. So how do you do that?

 

Liz Faircloth  42:48

You know, I think you know, there’s there’s people who jump into things. And then there’s people who are really intentional, right? And there’s no right and wrong, because I think you can add value. I think you can be successful either way. But I know for me and undress we did the amount of exercises and intention we thought about and the intentions. We kind of like the brainstorms. I mean, we talked about this and brainstormed it in a way that I don’t know if most people would, to be honest. So we were really like, mindful. When we came together, we said we both were very passionate about, you know, empowering women in serving women in this niche. We then got more refined, you know, who are these women? What’s their age? Like? What are their pains? What are their challenges? What keeps them up at night, you know, because you can’t serve everyone. So getting really clear on who you want to serve, is the the most important thing I believe. So we were really clear, we wanted women who were either experienced had some deals under their belt. And if they were new to investing they had they have a professional woman, they’re a businesswoman, they’re entrepreneurs, they had, you know, experience, they literally weren’t just waking up thinking this is a good idea. That’s not our avatar, necessarily. And so we’ve got really clear. And then we also said, Do we start a community? Do we start meetups? Do we start a conference? Do we start a podcast? And so we did this exercise. And we talked about, it’s called totally made it up. And you can totally anyone can take this and Please steal it is called analyzing your top moments in life. So if you think back on your life, and you say, what were those moments that were like, top, you know, like, the just the best moments of my life, you know, birth of children and all those things are amazing. And I don’t mean to dismiss those, but we were trying to like okay, besides the family events, which was which are amazing. For me just personally, what, like, what comes up for you in what were those moments that you just felt most joy, most happiness? There’s no sense of time. It came easy to you like what were those times? And so her and I both interestingly did this exercise and came back together and talked about it and I remember doing this and my answers were like, I love inspiring people. I love to be inspired. I love both. I love personal growth. I love learning about myself and growing and figuring myself out. And I love helping other people. I love inspiring people. It’s like, what gives me life. And anything I’ve ever done in any walk I’ve ever taken. She said she was very similar in that. So we were like, We got to start a podcast, because the podcast literally does that, right? You’re interviewing people, you’re talking to people, and you’re helping other people along the way. So that’s how we chose to figure out to focus on our podcast initially. Then we said simultaneously, let’s start a Facebook community. Because the last thing you want is to be like talking to people. And you know, for me, I’m an extrovert I gotta talk to I got to be engaged with people, I can’t just like, you know, talk to a camera. So then we started a Facebook group simultaneously. And then we started as a passion, we even start a company, we didn’t start an LLC, we didn’t start anything, it was just like, let’s do this and see. And if six months, we give this a six month go, and and if literally, it’s just not going anywhere, then then we given this are all, and we said that the beginning, we’re like, we’re giving this six months, we’re not gonna even we’re not going to do anything. Like don’t even think about stopping, you know, and we edited all of our own podcasts, and wrote all of our show notes for 100 episodes. So we did that way too long. But that’s another story. You know, you got two very hardworking women who think they can do everything which we’ve we’re learning not to do right to delegate and automate all that good stuff. So long story short, building, the community then, is more than a Facebook group, right? It’s about listening to people. It’s about asking questions. It’s women, women would post in there, you know, hey, is anyone in this area? Do you want to get together? And we’re like, like, Andressa, we were both talking about, let’s start a meetup in Philly. So her and I led the meetup, we were the leaders. And then we’d have other women saying in other parts of the country, hey, we want to do a meet up. And we’re like, oh, this is interesting. And so then we like, Okay, let’s go all in. And now, two and a half years ago, you know, we have 53 meetups, which is built community. We never asked anyone for a dime, you know, and then So, and that was, you know, people are like, Oh, you you waited a long time when you get to monetize, when are you gonna monetize? Like, I just want to help you lose weight, I want to help people and serve them. And then until there’s a reason to charge someone for something, then then we will make that make that call, like so many people think about making money, and not really providing value. You don’t know how to do that, if you don’t do the value part. So we’d hear a lot of women saying, God, there’s so many gurus out there, there’s so many people that you know that they’re charging all this crazy money for coaching and this and that, and that there’s a lot of good ones out there. But they’re like, unjust and I came together, what can we build that’s different, and is needed. And that’s something that aligns with what we’re trying to build here. So we created more of a membership, mentorship kind of program, which is like more of like a, you know, a monthly membership, where women come in and they get mentorship, they get a chance to be part of like a six month pod on syndication or multifamily. We’re on a mastermind with them once a month, they you know, write up their goals, and we hold them accountable to their goals. And then they help each other. It’s like a community, right? So it’s a mini community, that women to take things deeper. We’ve got 70 members right now. And, and we’re growing that but that came out of being asked to do it that didn’t come out of like me just sitting in my office thinking about things I can offer. We did a summit, we’ve done two summits. And we have sponsors. And we’re gonna be doing our first in person next June. But we’ve done two virtual ones. So I think that’s important, though, Scott, I think people want to build communities, but they don’t know why they want to build communities, they don’t know for who I think the more laser focused you are. I’m the avatar. So as I’m Jessa like I not that I I’m, I’ve experienced in investing, or growing. We’re still active investors, though, me my husband, you know, we have a portfolio we’re still in the business. It’s not like we’re done with that. And I think that’s you know, you we attract more people like that, who are like serious women who want to get things done and want to do it in a way that’s balanced and have has self care at the prominence. It’s not just this like doing it to do it, because that’s the other part of our mission. It’s not just real estate, investing education, you can get that anywhere. But how do you do it in the realm of everything else in your life and doing it in a way that’s there’s a lot of self care.

 

Scott D Clary  49:28

I just want to take a second and thank the sponsor of today’s episode HubSpot. Now, the new year might have you thinking ahead to what you want out of your career. So when you think about your success story, what do you actually picture? Is it retiring early with a beautiful view of the skyline? Is it leaving a legacy with your name on it? Or maybe it’s helping influence and change some of the world’s most pressing issues? Whatever it is, writing your success story starts by working smart because when you work smart, your success story writes itself. A HubSpot CRM platform helps your marketing campaign hands work harder and smarter. With intuitive visual workflows and bot builders, you can create scalable, automated campaigns across email, social media, web and chat. So your customers hear your messages loud and clear. Are you tired of your content not adapting to mobile, making it difficult for your customers to absorb your message a HubSpot CRM platform optimizes your content for multiple devices so that you can reach your customers, wherever they are, which is just smart. Learn more about how you can transform your customer experience with a HubSpot crm@hubspot.com you lead with the same with the same mindset that you had when you started off in real estate investing, which was you’re leading to help people and then look at what look at what the end result is the summits, the the meetups, the Facebook group, the mentorship, and now you can create a community around that. But it was like that the purpose drives everything the purpose drives out. And the purpose probably stops you from burning out when there is no momentum day one, because you still know that you have that purpose. So you know, when things aren’t moving as quick as you want them to move. If you have that purpose, it’s easier to keep going versus if you just do it for the money. And you don’t see any signups or whatnot, or you don’t see people joining your Facebook group. And you don’t really have a purpose, you don’t have that reason. That’s hard to keep going. So it’s something important too, for people that are trying to start this.

 

Liz Faircloth  51:25

I think to Scott, for any community, I think there’s a distinction because I see a lot of people on Facebook, of course, it’s never been about me and Andressa. Like we’re not the gurus. It’s not like you join this membership. And you have daily coaching calls with us. There’s pod mentors, we have seven other women who know more about short term rentals about creative financing. It’s a community, we always wanted to build a like it’s not the losing justice show. And I think there’s a distinction there, I think there’s certain there’s certain educational, you know, frameworks out there that are very person centric. Now we’re the leaders and I have, we have a presence in what we’re doing. I don’t mean to say like that. But we always had a vision of like a circle. And we want the circle to be really big, but it’s, you know, if people know me or not, but they know our community, that’s more important. And I’m just an I always said that from when we started. And I think that’s very important. If you’re building a community, you cannot be, like egocentric in my opinion, it’s really hard to have both. So if you want to build a coaching model module, and you’re the you’re the GI, if you will, then then go build that, but don’t build a community too, because it’s, it’s going to become less about you. And people aren’t going to know you. And that and that’s a good thing. You know? Yeah, I have a podcast, right? I don’t mean to say it, like, I don’t want anyone to know me, but that’s not as important to me. You know, women get what they need at a meetup. Whether they know, I’m one of the founders or not, I mean, you know, nice for my ego. But I want her to become financially free. That’s the more important part. Very smart.

 

Scott D Clary  52:56

Okay. I want to ask some rapid fire questions. Yeah, to close this out. But most importantly, if people are wanting to get the podcast, get the book or contact you reach on social, where should they go?

 

Liz Faircloth  53:08

Sure. So our, our website has like a lot of different ways to kind of go to different places. So it’s the real estate investor. hgr.com. We’re really active on Facebook, as well, the real estate investor. And we’ve that’s where our free Facebook group is, but you can get that from our website, and Instagram. You know, we’ve growing Instagram following you know, we’re putting out good content. I do a run with Liz every week, but it’s at the real estate investor and H E R, and your podcast is on Spotify. It’s on the major networks and what have you so yeah,

 

Scott D Clary  53:43

good, awesome. Okay, people go check that out. We’ll put some links in the show notes. People can go find it as well. Okay, so rapid fire questions to close this off. And also thank you that was we went through like a ton of stuff. So I was really happy. That was That was great. Um, okay, so biggest challenge you had in your life? What was that challenge? How’d you overcome it?

 

Liz Faircloth  54:02

We had close to a million dollars stolen from us our money and I know this is gonna be very quick answer, but I’m gonna be as succinct as I can. And it was our money in our investors money. Don’t ever give up. And every tough experience leads you to a better outcome. And we learned a lot through that experience. And it didn’t it only made us stronger. So remember that you can get literally kicked in the face and if you use it as a learning lesson, it will make you stronger.

 

Scott D Clary  54:31

Good that’s another podcast that’s a that’s another

 

Liz Faircloth  54:34

sure that’s a story have me and Matt have me and Matt on for that that’s

 

Scott D Clary  54:38

totally that’s a that’s a hell of a story. Okay. If you had to choose one person there’s obviously been many but one person has been incredible impact influence impact on your life and mentor who was that person? What do they teach you?

 

Liz Faircloth  54:49

Hmm. I think that you know, there’s a lot of people and I say a lot of you know, people along my way of how High school and college and grad school. But I’d say the first person that just popped in my head was my professor for my entrepreneurial class. And he was like this serial entrepreneur, I mean, you know, and again, is like, I didn’t know any of these people. And I see this in an older gentleman, he kind of took me under his wing. And we had a lot of conversations during that class, like just one on one. And it’s just really cool, because I got a chance to get to know someone, and he was so giving. So that’s my first like, you know, serial offer that I ever met, he was the most giving person. So that was very helpful for me, that really imprinted on me of like, Oh, these aren’t just like sharks and people who want to make a lot of money. You know, I mean, that’s okay, too. But these are getting people to a

 

Scott D Clary  55:41

very good book or podcast outside of your own, obviously, that you’d recommend people to check out.

 

Liz Faircloth  55:48

I’m really, I’ve really been enjoying Brene Brown’s podcast.

 

Scott D Clary  55:52

She’s been. She’s been recommended a few times. So I think that’s a good one. For sure.

 

Liz Faircloth  55:58

Yeah, I do. I adore her. Her her work. Her stuff is great. You know, and it’s very resonates a lot of just doing the work on yourself. So you can be a better leader, a better entrepreneur, a better mom a better fill in the blank, a better, higher version of yourself, if you will, because you you know, you are who you are. And there’s greatness but so I’ve really enjoyed her stuff. I’ve enjoyed all her books, podcasts, and she’s just like, you know, the kind of podcast host she’s just like chatting with people. You feel like you were there with her. That’s why I think I like her as much. I feel like I know her, but I don’t know. Yeah, not yet. Oh, it’s one of my goals to have her have her on our podcast.

 

Scott D Clary  56:33

If I get her on here, I’ll send you I’ll send you her info. And get her on to she’s she’s busy. I’m sure she has enough invites. I think I just saw on Tim Ferriss, so maybe one day when I’m at that level. If you could tell your 20 year old self one thing, what would that be?

 

Liz Faircloth  56:49

Oh, I tell I tell her a lot of things. I would probably tell her. You know, be be kind to yourself.

 

Scott D Clary  57:00

Be kind yourself. That’s good. That’s that. Never heard someone say that before, but that’s a good one. And lastly, what does success mean to you?

 

Liz Faircloth  57:09

Who success means to me? Being being a better version of myself than I was yesterday.