SPI 659: The Perfect Funnel for Community Growth with Liz Faircloth and Andresa Guidelli

SPI 659: Liz Faircloth and Andresa Guidelli

Liz Faircloth: Don’t get overwhelmed by the numbers or judging yourself against what you should be doing or how many people should be in your community.

There’s no shoulds. And if you have one person following you, listen to them. Ask them questions, get into a relationship with them. When I look at it as a relationship, I give, I listen, I hear, I adapt.

So I would just say it doesn’t matter the size of the community. But if you’re not listening to one person, you’re not gonna listen to a thousand. You’re not gonna listen to a hundred thousand. So get really good at building the muscle of being in a relationship with the people that are following you.

Pat Flynn: That’s and Andresa and Liz from the Real Estate InvestHER podcast. Yes. InvestHER. They help women in real estate come together and they built this amazing community. And in fact, this episode outlines a beautiful process to how to go from something like a podcast or YouTube channel or whatever the top of funnel is from that to a free community to an in-person sort of meetup.

And they do this beautiful thing where they have leaders in the community step up to actually lead communities all around the world. Meetups and masterminds and things like that under their brand name. And guess what? They also charge those leaders to do that. And I had a lot of questions about that and I’m very, very happy with their answer.

So anyway, they go from there to then their bigger conference. And this is a, you know, you’ve heard me talk about this before, community being the future of business. And if you’re not focusing on building a community, well, this is the episode for you, right? We’ve been trying to lead the charge there in the entrepreneurial space.

These women, Liz and Andresa, are leading the charge in the real estate space, and it’s just a beautiful step-by-step example. And we got a lot of information that will help you today. And here we are in March of 2023, a perfect time for this as you start to think about what’s gonna happen mid-year and through the rest of 2023 for you.

I hope you enjoy this episode. This is a beautiful one, and just I’m so grateful for these two. They’re also former students of Power-Up Podcasting, our course, and they’ve definitely executed very, very well. So here they are, Liz and Andresa.

Announcer: Welcome to the Smart Passive Income Podcast, where it’s all about working hard now, so you can sit back and reap the benefits later. And now your host, he believes soft skills are more important than technical skills. Pat Flynn.

Pat Flynn: Andresa, Liz, welcome to the Smart Passive Income Podcast. Thank you so much for joining me today. I’m really excited to chat because you’ve done something that is sort of a dream for most people who are building an audience, and that is to build a, a true and loyal community and to have things sort of take a life of their own.

Right, and, and now you are empowering all these women around the world really to focus on real estate and building passive income in in that way. I do wanna get into the strategies of how you’re doing that. And I know it all started with a podcast, which is really exciting to me. But I wanna know how both of you met and how you became business partners.

Andresa, maybe we could start with with you and your perspective, and then we’ll get the other side of the story from Liz after.

Andresa Guidelli: I hope the both versions match, but Liz and I are former real estate investors and we came together, you know, Panera Bread every single month to support one another. And we start asking the question, where do women that are looking to build their business and take their real estate portfolio to another level, where, where do they go? Where is this community where they feel safe to raise their hands and ask questions? Because I was asking her questions and she was asking me questions. We looked and we couldn’t find it, so we found him, we found the real estate investor community Ian. We started with a podcast, so we listened to you, Pat, and we followed to the T, everything that you recommended, and then from there we grew a meet-up.

We have 60 locations in the US and Canada, and a extremely engaged Facebook group community where we pour, we are like each other’s board meeting there. So the, that’s how in a nutshell, the investor community started.

Pat Flynn: That’s, that’s absolutely incredible. And, and, and Liz like, Andresa just mentioned that you two kind of, would kind of connect with each other, kind of, just kind of as friends and, and share ideas. And you kind of looked around and you’re like, we need more people here. The more, the more, the better. How, how did you both, were you both friends like in school or something before that? Like how did you all connect initially?

Liz Faircloth: Yeah. Yeah. Happy, happy to answer that. So we were both doing our separate kind of like investments, Andresa was focused on Philadelphia and my husband and I were focused on like the New Jersey market on the east coast. And him and I were like, you know what, we gotta branch out from New Jersey cuz for, for those who are from Jersey, It was starting to get a little more expensive and we’re like, we gotta start to explore.

So we found, Andresa was very active on BiggerPockets. So it’s kind of full circle because our podcast is published now by BiggerPockets. So it’s kind of neat how we, we started there with, with, together and we reached out. She was literally when we first spoke to her, she was, we were literally on the phone with her for five minutes.

But there’s something about her that I loved. I’m like, this woman’s efficient. She gets to business and we’ve ended up meeting together for coffee, our spouses and the four of us got together just kind of in Philly, just chatting and connected and something about Pat when you meet people, right? I love everyone to be honest with you.

However, when I met Andresa I’m like this, she’s different. She’s gonna be, she’s a, she can become a very good friend of mine and a confidant here, and that’s before we did any business together. And so we’re so friends together several years and then Andresa was, think you came to us saying, Hey, look, there’s a couple of real estate projects we should collaborate.

So we ended up doing a, a, a number of deals together before partnering. I’ll, I’ll also say this too, quick tip for everyone listening is that when you’re exploring partnerships, right, and because like, you know, at first it starts out wonderful and it starts out like, you know, wonderful, and then sometimes it doesn’t end up that way.

Her and I actually started a women’s mastermind together via Skype, long before Zoom. And it was one of the things as friends that we started together because again, we always had this need to, like, how do we connect with other women in this business and support each other? And so we did that and, and it was such a neat project Pat, not just for the six of us, and we’re good friends with these women still, but it was really cool in hindsight to actually, really kind of like watch each other, see how we kind of show up for each other, you know? And we, we ended up really respecting a lot of the way we brought, you know, Andresa is gonna do X and Liz is gonna leave the call and do the mission statement, and we did what we said we were gonna do. So I thought that was a really, in hindsight, not only was it totally built upon what we’re up to now with our, our, our global community, if we got a chance to really start to try each other, more than friends, if you will, in terms of like partners.

Pat Flynn: That that’s such key advice and, and I’m thankful you said that because partnerships are very valuable when you can compliment each other, but, but they don’t always work out with the first person that you see and you kind of have to go on dates first, right before you kind of, you know, quote unquote marry each other.

That’s really what a business partnership is sort of like. And I know that there was a point at which both of you were like, Hey, we should start a podcast. And, and Andresa, was this more of a, Hey, we’re talking about these things anyway. Let’s just turn the microphone on and see what happens. Or was there sort of a bigger plan behind the podcast and did you ever think it would turn into what it has turned into today?

Andresa Guidelli: We did not have that, that big of a, a dream, and I would say as an introvert, networking events that are a nightmare for me. So, but at the same time, I am very interested in people’s stories. So I was like, podcast is a great way for me to really connect with other people. If nobody likes it, nobody listens to us, which 42 countries right now.

So people are listening to us, but we, we are connecting with other women. We are shining the lights. They are having a platform to really express their journey, their success, and their being vulnerable and really giving people action steps, right? But it’s, it didn’t start like, like that. And we, we celebrated every single milestone as we, we went along with, with the podcast.

And to be quite honest, we had, we have somebody that looked at that in the eye and he, they said, listen, you are going to run out of women to interview, so 300 episodes later and almost a million downloads, we are booked until next year and we have grown such a, a community of women that are are coming, you know, they were under the radar and they were coming to the surface and really sharing and exploring different ways. And everything started with the podcast and then expanded to completely different other areas that we were able to support women that it was not even on the plan.

Pat Flynn: That’s so great. First of all, whoever said that, like what a scarcity mindset to approach something with, right? And you just cannot win as an entrepreneur or a creator if you have that kind of mindset. So good for you to continue to just know that this was gonna go somewhere. And even like you said, Andresa, like even if nobody listened the connections and the networking that happens and, and, and, and the relationships that are built are, are so valuable. And yet here you are in 42 countries with a a million downloads and 319 episodes later and, and still continuing on. That’s, that’s great. I, I’m, I’m curious, Liz, as far as like when the podcast started, I know you, this is a quick plug for Power-Up Podcasting. I know you both took that course and, and like, I love it because you took action on it. And I’m curious to know, like after you started the podcast, when did you really start to feel Liz that this was like, wow, we, we actually have something here and this, this could be something much bigger?

Liz Faircloth: Yeah, it’s a great question and, and it’s funny because. and, and on any journey you have to make an investment. And on Andresa and I were like, this is gonna be a time investment and a, and a money investment. I remember, you know how much your course was, and her and I were like, should we make the investment?

Or she just figure it out ourselves? And at the time, you know, it’s like, it’s funny how you, wow. I can’t believe I said that four years ago. Right. And so what’s what’s neat about the process and what you’re asking too, is I think for us when we started to get some traction was when we knew that we wanted to do more than just interview women.

We said we gotta get into community with women. We really gotta get where women are connecting and talking. Cuz podcasting is amazing, but at the end of the day, right, you, you can’t talk to people that are, that are listening to it, . So we started a Facebook community kind of simultaneous, or right after we started the podcast and we kind of called our friends and, and you know, I put it on our, my face, my Facebook page.

Hey, anybody wanna join our group? Just trying to get some momentum. And, and then we started to see the numbers increasing and increasing, increasing. And we saw the camaraderie and the women asking questions and, and sharing. So once we started to see that happening, we’re like, women started asking for more.

Like, we gotta get together, we gotta be in more community with each other. And then we started to meet up Andresa and I led that in Philadelphia. That was our first meetup and that so we just saw, like every step we took, we saw a really positive response. and it was never like a force, it was never something like, oh, no one’s coming to these meetups.

Women would just be raising their hands like, do you have a meetup here? Do you have a meetup in California? We wanna start one. So it was very organic. It wasn’t us pushing. It was, it was like kind of like everyone pulling together.

Pat Flynn: I think that just speaks to what people, or even just what, like what people want.

People want to feel like they belong to something. They want to find people like them. They want to find a place where people. Share the same language, right? And women in real estate, you’re now stepping up to create that space. By the way, everybody should go and listen to the Real Estate InvestHER show on whatever device you’re using to listen to podcast, but in just as you were gonna add to, to that element of it.

Andresa Guidelli: Yeah. And I, I, I just wanna share with, with everybody cuz we celebrated our milestones, so we celebrated. First episode going live, by the way, not the first, only because we recorded three as you requested, and we still do that, and I cannot tell how that simple tip was super helpful for us. We are never behind and we never miss a bit because we are always plan ahead.

So thank you for that. But we celebrated every single milestone. The first 10 downloads, the first hundred downloads. Oh my gosh. When we cross a thousand downloads, we celebrated that another day. Facebook shared with us, oh, a couple of years ago. We only started four years ago, so our Facebook group reached a hundred members and I was celebrating that.

Now we have 14,000 members there, 20,000 members on the meetup. So for the, the, your audience, I want you to, guys to do not discount the milestones in your evolution. A year ago, we were invited to join Bigger Pockets Network, which is the number one real estate podcast in in the world with over 150 million combined downloads.

So this testimonial for of the hard work that day in and day out, we showed up no matter what. We showed up and we, we interviewed women. Gave our all, we requested women to give their all, and it’s a delay gratification, but I want everybody that are, are listening and building their, their podcast audience to really celebrate the milestones, to look back and, and see how far you’ve come.

Pat Flynn: Thank you so much for that. It’s a great reminder because we often get jaded from the numbers that we see out there that other people might be having and, and we forget that every listener, every single one download is an actual human being. Whose life you can change, who you know your information is helping them in some way, shape, or form.

And I, and I love that. You know, in my book Superfans, I talk a lot about this idea of cultivating community. And I want to go back to how you started this community on Facebook. Liz, I, I love to know, how did you bring people from the show? To the community. And what kinds of things did you do there? Like what encouraged engagement and how did you get that activated?

Liz Faircloth: Yeah. You know, I think we would start mentioning it, just, you know, because what, what’s amazing about a podcast, right? Is it’s, it’s a platform, you know, for sharing, you know, sharing what’s coming up, and sharing how else women can get connected to each other. So, you know, when we started the Facebook community and, and still to this day, honestly, and Andresa and I are very active, it was never like this.

You know, people say, oh, start a Facebook community and just watch it grow. Like we, we were in there. Yeah, we were in there every day. And I probably look at it at least multiple times a day still, you know, we have moderators, we have people helping us, but regardless, it’s something, it’s like a baby that we wanna protect, you know, in terms of self-promotion, and they get spammy.

It gets noisy. Random posts come on about non real estate investment. So we were always very clear with what we wanted to happen there. We wanted conversations in a safe place for women to give and get support. We’ve always been crystal clear on our intentions, and that’s very important. I think when starting a Facebook community, I’ll talk to folks and be like, oh, you know, that might be something you might wanna try.

And they’re like, What would I do and why would I wanna start that? I’m like that. That’s important to answer before you start it, because then you don’t know how to protect it and really cultivate. We would definitely put in engaging posts, you know, share a win, share where, where your current challenges are.

And the, the beautiful part about our Facebook community is that there’s experienced women, like women I know personally who don’t need to work another day in their life. They’re doing just fine financially, but they’re such givers and women who are new to the space and our community serves both those avatars, that professional woman that.

The engineer or just a nurse and just tired of maybe the day-to-day or, or they wanna build their wealth on the side in terms of real estate investments. And we have those women who do this full-time, who are in it and, you know, have built a portfolio. So all of these women are active and, and that’s the, I think the beautiful part about a, an online community.

Put rules up and then honor your rules and fiercely honor your rules. Because if you don’t, anything is gonna go. And then it gets really chaotic and, and that’s one thing our group has never been in four years.

Pat Flynn: That’s great. Liz, real quick, where can people go to check out the group in case they’re curious?

Liz Faircloth: Yeah, so it’s just going to Facebook and it’s the Real Estate InvestHER community.

Pat Flynn: Invest her h e r at the end investor. Right. Okay. Correct. Cool. H e r. Perfect. Thank you Andresa. To continue that conversation about the Facebook group. I mean, I know it’s easier to engage when it’s smaller, right? When you have 10 people in there, you could celebrate them.

You can get to know every individual. Once it gets to, you know, several hundred or even thousands, and now you have 14,000 members in there, how do you still make people feel like they belong to that or that they can relate to it? Can you, can you offer any tips for a giant community like that?

Andresa Guidelli: A hundred percent.

We receive an average of a hundred new members. Per week. So we always have a weekly welcome, welcome email, the same day, the same time. Everybody’s tagged there. And we encourage them to share, share their story if they wanna write about it, if they wanna record a quick video about it. And you talk about the hundred super fans in inside your book, and I, I couldn’t agree more with that.

You get to the point where when you create such a great momentum that other women start having such a ownership of the community, they talk as if it’s theirs, they protect as if it’s theirs. So they jump in all the time and we make connections and recommendations. We have women around the country, so we know somebody there that can help one another.

And I think that that, that’s one of the things that we, we do this welcome post and when, when women are coming there to share their struggles and, and challenges. We all jump in. I wouldn’t say I jump in in every single post because that’s physically impossible to, to do it at this point, but there’s no, no question that there’s no answer for it.

If there’s no answer for it, we will find a way to give that person a support. So finding moderators that really understand your brand and understand where you stand for that can really look at what’s happening there. And we get a lot of great situations that we bring those situations to the podcast or to live events and say, listen, this is a bigger issue.

We cannot just answer this on a simple post. So let’s, let me record a video. Let me record a mini episode which is a shorter episode to talk, to break this down f for you. So nobody feels that they’re left.

Pat Flynn: That’s great. Thank you. Thank you for that insight and you know, having that first impression when people are in there that they feel welcome, that they feel like they belong, is, is really what you’re doing there.

And that’s absolutely key. And it’s just like, it makes me so happy to see this coming to life in this way cuz this is everything I outlined in the book. You, you’re doing to a t you’re building this community, you’re making people feel welcome and now it’s sort of. Taken a, a, a life of its own, where now it’s almost like a team and you root for your team to win.

And if your team’s losing you, like somebody’s gonna step up and help out and it just takes this amazing sort of, there, there, there’s a heartbeat there, there’s a life to this, which is, which is fantastic. Liz, I’d love to ask you about, now that you have this community of, you know, 14,000, you know women, you know, there’s likely other communities that exist in the space as well that perhaps target the same audiences too.

How do you define who she is? Who is this avatar? Who is the person that your community is for? I’m curious to just hear your take on that, because. Everybody who is just like, Hey, yeah, I’m a, a person who might need help with this. And they go, oh, and they’re gonna, they’re gonna find, you know, 50 different groups, for example.

How, how do you define your unique selling proposition in this community? To stand out from others.

Liz Faircloth: Yeah. And I, I think the key there too is that we started with a focus. You know, when people say, oh, I wanna serve everyone, or I wanna serve, you know, this large group, it, it’s like, it’s. How are you gonna serve anyone?

So right at the beginning we were really clear on who we wanted to serve, and that’s, of course, have, has evolved a a bit. But honestly, you know, I, I forget if I read it in your book, but you know, when Andresa and I came together we were selflessly serving ourselves, right? So we’re serving women. Who are growing their portfolios, growing their wealth have families, have lots of different things pulling at them, and they’re, they’re, they, they, they yearn to keep growing professionally, their wealth, finances, and live life on their own terms.

Right? Live life in a way that doesn’t feel like I’m living, so I can have fun one day I’m living so I can. Go in the RV and just take a trip with my family, or I’m just gonna work from every, anywhere. We’re not living for something. We’re living for the lifestyle today. And so that’s what we wanted. We, that’s what we created at the beginning and certainly is our avatar.

And, and, and even more specifically, right, Pat, because then you get our really refined, who are we serving? What are their pains, what’s waking them up at the evening? Right? And it’s, it’s the woman who’s a solopreneur, you know, it’s the woman that is a she’s doing it all. He. , you know, she’s got a handful of properties, right?

Maybe five to 10 properties or growing, and she’s working with a contractor. She’s going to Home Depot, she’s doing her, her bookkeeping and she’s making money, right? She’s making passive income and she’s doing well, but she’s doing it all herself. And so that is where we, we’ve morphed in, in saying, okay, we wanna create wealth and we are creating wealth.

We’re on the journey, but you’re killing yourself in the. And you’re not creating the space for yourself. So how do we do that as a like-minded community? And that’s where our additional kind of memberships and, and community has come out of is just hearing women talk about their challenges so they can grow the team, they can grow the processes and the systems and not do it all themselves.

Pat Flynn: Yeah, that’s, that’s beautiful. And I remember you saying this before we hit record. It’s not just about the passive income part of it. It’s about the whole mind, body, soul aspect of, of being a woman and, and kind of making all this happen. It it’s a lot and you’re here to provide a support team and a support community for it, which is, which is awesome.

Andresa I’m curious now that we have this Facebook group, sort of, we, we understand what its purpose is and who’s in there. It’s online, and I know that with any community that’s online, there’s always gonna be people who want to meet each other in person. And that’s a beautiful thing because those real connections are happening and it’s handshakes and hugs and all those kinds of things too.

And now that we’re outta the pandemic, that is a lot more possible than ever and, and you, you have seemed to really kneel down. , what I see in a lot of really very successful communities, which is this transition from the online space to now the in-person space and how to manage that. Especially because there’s different people all, all around the world.

And if you go to the, TheRealEstateInvestHER.com Yeah, you’ll, you’ll see a map and on this website you’ll see a map of all the different in-person locations where meetings are held. And I just wanna know, Andresa about how you do that, because that’s something that we at S P I are interested in doing now, like the in-person stuff and how to manage all that.

Can you speak to how that all started and how you’re getting people from the online space to show up in person and just h how are you doing that? I’m very curious.

Andresa Guidelli: Sure. We, we started with one meetup location in Philadelphia. Liz and I rented by ourselves. We had guests coming over. We did masterminds, and then we started sharing about, that meeting.

And then other women inside the community are saying, do you have one in Florida? Do you have one in Milwaukee? Do you have one in California? And we’re like, no, like we’re not traveling because that’s, that was our mindset at that moment. And then women started stepping up and saying, well, if you share your process, your systems, I can duplicate that in my location.

And they, wait a minute. Hold on a second. Right, so then we start creating, duplicating what we had in Philadelphia and we started. Two or three locations, and now we have 60 plus locations around the US and Canada. So we have leaders there and we encourage those leaders to have a support team just in case if the person cannot make it.

So they can do it. And we offer them a, a process. We have standard operating procedures that they can use in order for them to run, so they don’t need to reinvent the wheel. There is a standard across the board in terms of our brand, what we stand for, how is, is run, and women come together. Right. And then what we are seeing right now is that everybody now wants to know, One another, and that’s why Investor Con came along is our conference where all those meetups, all those women come together once in year and meet for the first time.

And we just did it in June, our first conference where we have over 400 women and our keynote was Kim Kiosaki. So it is just a, a great time for women to come together and really make deeper connections. Women really want to do that more than networking. Our meetups are not regular networks. We really get to know one another.

We are committed to other, each other’s progress, and we know each other’s name, their family name. So it’s important that it’s deeper than just knowing how many doors do we own.

Pat Flynn: That’s so cool. I could see. Sort of ladder or progression, right? It’s the Facebook group. Well, first of all, it’s the podcast that’s top of funnel that’s bringing people in.

They get to know you, they love the vibe, and they’re like, okay, I wanna find other women like this. They go into the Facebook community, they’re feeling it there, they’re enjoying, some people are stepping up and becoming moderators, and then now they can go from there to the in-person things that are happening.

And then from there, now you have this conference, and, and the conference is like the, the big one. And so there’s like a, there’s like a ladder there and I can imagine just a person. Who was once a listener now really involved with the community and, and even stepping up to help. . Liz, I want to ask you some more mechanical questions about the sort of in-person meetups, and we’ll talk about the conference in just a second or, or the Con, but the meetups, are you paying these women to help lead these?

Are their payments required to attend them, and how often are they happening and, and, and whatnot?

Liz Faircloth: So couple things. Number one, typically the, the meetups are free unless there’s like a, more than a reason to say okay, like Long Island, right? Nothing’s free in Long Island, New York City, like major metro areas tend to be, they need to, like, you don’t, they sometimes have to pay for their space.

So it’s usually to cover costs. Okay. From that perspective, in terms of the meetup leaders, so when we start with the meetup platform, meetup.com. It seemed like the ma we’re still there in terms of our, our network, if you will, and meetup.com, you know, obviously charges right to, to grow a, a footprint, if you will.

And we said, you know, what would be really helpful is that we really want women who are committed, who are gonna lead this, this we were very clear on kind of like our quote unquote avatar for our meetup leader. We want women, a woman who has. And, and a woman who is gonna be willing to put some skin in the game.

And so we do, we actually charge the meetup leader to be a meetup leader part of our platform. No way. And yeah, and, and, and, and a very reasonable fee, obviously. But something that, because you know, at the beginning, right, we’re, we were like, no one knew our brand and we were Liz, andresa, just, you know, really committed and passionate about what we were.

You know, and as we’ve built this brand, and I want, you know, folks listening, you, you know, you’re build what you build in a brand is, is so a lot of hard work and, and it, we don’t take that lightly. And so we want women who are also committed. You know, Pat, at the end of the day, this is a business, but we, we really believe wholeheartedly, both on Jess and I, we do this cuz it’s a, it’s a social responsibility shifting the generations of women and, and what they’re putting their money into and their.

In growing wealth, we are, we’re shifting the tide and so future generations are gonna be impact. That’s the work we’re up to. So we don’t take that lightly and we wanna keep moving the tide. So in generations pure, like, why did you even need that community? You know? So that’s what we’re up to. And we do not want women who are gonna honestly just take some space up.

I don’t mean to be mean, but we really wanted women who are committed to our mission and who also had the same passion. So one way to do that is obviously to create a monetary piece to the puzzle and also having experience. So let’s how the payment piece works.

Pat Flynn: I see. Okay. So let’s say I am a woman who is in your community and I, I wanna step up and help.

I pay, how much am I paying and what do I get back in return? I th I understand it from your perspective. It’s like we, we want women who are committed, who, who have skin in the game, who are going to commit to this. So that, that makes sense. And if I pay for this, I’m. do the thing. Mm-hmm. , but what do I get in return for that?

Liz Faircloth: Obviously that’s evolved, but in, in general. Now in terms of meetup leaders, number one, it’s a plug and play. So when you have scaled something at to 60 meetups, right? We’re not reinventing the wheel in terms of an agenda or how, how to post your meeting. We’re literally plug and play of marketing the meetup to getting women in in the room how to run your meeting.

You know how to deal with all the things that you have to deal with as a meetup leader. So you’re, you’re, you’re getting all kinda like the systems, the processes in a sense. Number two, you’re really marketing yourself and your business through our brand. So you’re getting the exposure, right? You’re, you’re getting the connections.

As a leader of our community, we’ve, we’ve had women who’ve told us, I go into the bank and the local bank and, and they know of the meetup in the community. And because I’m the leader of the meetup, they take me more seriously. And, and that’s so something, you know. I’m like, that’s awesome. And you know, a woman in, in Nebraska.

And so the other piece that Andresa and I have done and we always wanted to pour into the women who are leading meetups as well, is that we’re, again, we gotta start with masterminding. Kind of. That’s the kind of key piece to a lot of the work we do with our members with, with everyone we connect with. So, on a quarterly basis, which is happening right around now, we do a meeting, a Zoom meeting with all of our Meetup leaders.

We kind of talk a lot, a little bit about what’s coming up, what they need to be aware of, you know, just. InvestHER Meetup business. And then part of it is also connecting with the other Meetup leaders. So women are connecting with each other across the country and they’ve expanded their own network, just being a Meetup leader.

And then the last piece of it is we do like a mastermind session where a couple women go in the hot seat and say, okay, we’re all here to grow our wealth through real estate investing. What’s coming up for you? Where are you getting stopped? So we’re constantly, how do we pour ourselves into the women who are pouring themselves into other women?

And that’s what we’ve done from the beginning. And we continue to do that as kind of. support to our meetup leaders.

Pat Flynn: Yeah, that’s what I was looking for. Like what, what is the value that comes back? Right? We always wanna do business in a way where it’s a win for everybody. It’s a huge win for you because you’re getting a woman to step up and lead and bring the community together in a location so that you don’t have to travel there and it, and it brings the community even stronger.

But to have now access to the other leaders and to share ideas and to cross pollinate and to. Filtered access to those groups that I, that’s worth paying for. I mean, I pay for things like that right now. And then the recognition is being a leader. I see them listed on your website and then the recognition in the community.

It’s a win all around. I, I absolutely love that. So thank you for distilling that for us, because that I think is a beautiful model again, where everybody can win and now and Andresa so you have your conference, and I know at the time that this episode comes out, that’s actually coming up in a couple months.

Can you talk about. The conference part of it. Cause I know this is aspirational for a lot of creators as well, especially if they have a community already. They want to bring the community together, not in small meetups, but in a big, giant space. And so you ran one already that, that’s awesome. How did that go?

Was it harder than you thought? And, and what was the outcome of that? and talk about the next one that’s coming up in case people are interested.

Andresa Guidelli: So in 2020 we were thinking about running our first in-person conference, and then Covid hit. So for two years we ran a, a virtual event, which is another animal, right?

But we learned a lot there, all about systems and process. So when, when you are running a conference to magnitude that you have hundreds of hundreds of women, we had 30 companies coming and sponsoring. You’re dealing with so much. It’s not even funny. The zeros are much more there, but the goal is the same across the board.

You gotta have the right teaming place and, and the right KPIs, the milestones. What do we need to achieve here? Liz and I are always committed to create an experience because we have been in so many real estate conferences where the, the main focus was on real estate knowledge by itself, and that was about it.

There was no diversity from stage whatsoever. Many times we were the only woman in the room can count that, so we were not able to relate the experiences to the success of other people. So we are very committed to create an experience for women in real estate where they feel safe to raise their hands to ask a question.

And that’s exactly what we created in June, 2022 with, we had 25 speakers led by Kim Kiosaki, which is a legend in in real estate. And I can tell you what I’ve seen during that conference. Women lining up to speak on a mic and ask questions and share their thoughts. Never saw that before. What whatsoever women felt comfortable expressing valuable information, and that gave the confidence to other women to stand up and really play in the arena.

So that’s. We wanna do again May, in Arizona. The theme for this year is generational wealth. You come first. Cuz women invest in gen in real estate mainly because of generational wealth. But we won’t, don’t want women to live a alive now and sacrifice for the next generation. So how can you benefit?

How can you live, build your business and prepare yourself to become successful and have time to enjoy the success, now, why are you setting up the next generation? So all these speakers and resources that we’re going to offer for the two days is going to be for this woman and one neat thing that we’re doing this time that we reserve the entire resort for ourselves.

So that’s a ti so it is gonna be a good time in Arizona too.

Pat Flynn: That’s amazing. Where can people go and just IT to learn more about that conference in case they’re curious?

Andresa Guidelli: TheRealEstateInvestHER.com/investhercon.

Pat Flynn: We’ll have links in the show notes for everybody who’s curious. O obviously.

Liz, as we finish up here, I’d love to have you speak to the person who’s listening or watching this and thinking, you know what, this community thing that these two women are doing is amazing, and just the sort of ladder that a person can climb inside of the brand. But it’s very daunting. It’s very, it could be overwhelming to even think about that.

Process. What advice would you offer somebody like you, but four years ago who is just starting on this journey of building a community to help encourage them to keep going despite, you know, it being a little overwhelming and tough?

Liz Faircloth: I would say number one, don’t get overwhelmed by the numbers or judging yourself against what you should be doing or how many people should be in your community.

There’s no shoulds, and if you have one person following you, listen to them. Ask them questions, get into a relationship with them. Cuz now we look like we, right now I feel like I’m in a relationship with a lot of people, you know? And I, when I look at it as a relationship, I give, I listen, I, hear, I adapt.

Versus a community is just like one-sided situation. It’s not, it’s a two-sided relationship. So I would just say it doesn’t matter the size of the community. But if you’re not listening to one person, you’re not gonna listen to a thousand. You’re not gonna listen to a hundred thousand. So get really good at building the muscle of being in a relationship with the people that are following you.

Again, whether it’s one person, 10 or a million, the numbers don’t matter as much. It’s more of your approach. It’s your way of showing up and it’s being of service to these people, cuz you’re ultimately a steward for them to get what they want. So if you don’t get that or really embody that, you’re just gonna be telling.

To do and say, and that’s not what we do in our community. Andresa and I were very, very clear at the beginning, Pat. We never wanted to be about us. . Obviously we are the leaders and the co-founders of this community, but there’s a lot of women experts. There’s a lot of women that know so much about real estate, the different aspects, and we pull these experts together and that’s what it’s about.

And I think if people embody that approach, It’s a lot of pressure if you’re the person, everyone asks about every question. That’s a little overwhelming. It’s not really realistic either.

Pat Flynn: Right. Thank you, Liz. You know, I think it was Zig Zigler who said, you can have everything in life that you want so long as you help other people get what they want.

Right? And so I love that repositioning and it’s very tough, especially if you are the face or the voice of the brand to, to continue to remember that because you are the one that people listen to. But if you take a a story brand approach where you. In your case, you’re women and for everybody else, like whoever it is that your avatar is, you make them the hero of the story.

I mean, that breeds community and that, and that creates something beautiful Andresa final words for everybody listening, who’s also building community to help encourage them moving forward after this episode ends.

Andresa Guidelli: Well, I always say asking for help is a sign of strength, so don’t get caught up on the how, how I’m gonna do this.

Focus on the who, who do I know who the can I tap into in order to achieve this goal and move the neither forward. And I think that you need to create, we all need to create futures that we are super excited about and our futures needs to be bigger than our challenges. Fewer somebody that are, is listening right now.

You’re not, you know, motivated, seek support from other people and take baby. The most important thing is that you are moving the needle forward. Your brain doesn’t know the size of your progress. Just know that you are moving, you are moving forward. So have grace with your progress. Move the needle forward.

That’s that’s our mantra. Move the needle forward. What is the one thing that you can do? So this is what we do on our podcast, Pat. So by listening. Podcast. What is like one thing, one thing that you can do that can get you closer to your goals? That’s what I would say.

Pat Flynn: Perfect way to end the show. And Jessa.

Thank you so much Liz. Thank you. And we’ll have a few more notes for everybody, so make sure to stick around. But thank you both. I appreciate you. Congrats on your success and good luck on the conference and everything. I mean, we’ll, we’ll connect again in the future and catch up, I’m sure. Thank you both.

All right. I hope you enjoyed that episode with Liz and Andresa from The Real Estate InvestHER podcast and you can check ’em out at TheRealEstateInvestHER.com website and their podcast is there information about their event is there as well, and their community. It’s just.

Again, like I said in the intro, this is just an amazing example of how one could take a person who just finds you all the way through Superfan status to bring them into a community and even a bigger event like a conference like the one they’re holding in a couple months. So everything I talked about in Superfans is happening in this space, and I absolutely love it.

So congratulations and Andresa and Liz, I appreciate you. If you wanna get all the links and everything mentioned here in this episode, head on over to the show notes page on the website at smartpassiveincome.com/session659. Again, website at smartpassiveincome.com/session659 and if you’re into real estate, they would have a great podcast to listen to.

Again, The Real Estate InvestHER show. And we’ve had bigger pockets on the show a while back, so it’s really cool to see they’re a part of that network Now. It’s just, it’s beautiful what happens when. Take that approach. You, you, you’re in it for the long game building community and you celebrate along the way.

I think that’s a great reminder as well that Andresa mentioned a few times. It’s celebrating even the few viewers or listeners or subscribers that you might have and, and so go ahead and do that and I look forward to serving you in the next episodes. Make sure you hit subscribe so you don’t miss out on the next and upcoming episodes, and I look forward to serving you. Until then, cheers, peace out and as always, team Flynn for the win.

Thanks for listening to the Smart Passive Income Podcast at SmartPassiveIncome.com. I’m your host, Pat Flynn. Our senior producer is David Grabowski. Our series producer is Paul Grigoras, and our executive producer is Matt Gartland. Sound editing by Duncan Brown. The Smart Passive Income Podcast is a production of SPI Media. We’ll catch you in the next session.