Speaker A [00:00:00]:

And he looked at me, and he said, like, you're throwing away your biggest opportunity of your lifetime, like, your personal brand. And if you really tried hard at this, you could make a $1,000,000 in 2 years.

Speaker B [00:00:11]:

Welcome to the creator's adventure where we interview creators from around the world hearing their stories about growing a business. Today's guest is a real estate investor, and she's gonna share how she built a paid community that turned into something bigger than she ever expected. Hey everyone. I'm Brian McAnulty, the founder of Heights Platform. Let's get into it. Many have asked me what software I use to record such high quality video for this podcast. I use Riverside and what's great about Riverside is it records the local camera feed from you and your guests around the world, which means crisp 4 k video without having to worry about blurriness due to Internet hiccups. Riverside is also a great editor, fitting with my philosophy of making it easy for yourself to create because there is nothing that your guests or you have to download.

Speaker B [00:01:00]:

We also use Riverside's AI magic clips to find interesting moments for our episode intros. And I'm happy to announce that Riverside is sponsoring this episode. And if you sign up at creators. Riverside.fm/creatorsadventure and use code creators adventure, you'll get 15% off. You can find the link in the episode description as well. Now back to the show. Hey, everyone. We are here today with Sully Cayetano.

Speaker B [00:01:26]:

She is a 25 year old real estate investor from the Bay Area who founded Out of State Investor Academy, a leading community for out of state real estate investors. And in just 3 years, she acquired over 40 properties, enabling her to leave her day job and pursue real estate full time. Sully shares her journey and tips on her Instagram page, lattes and leases, focusing on flipping midterm and long term rental strategies through private funding. Outside of real estate, she loves traveling, exploring new coffee shops, and creating Instagram reels. Soli, welcome to the show.

Speaker A [00:02:05]:

Thanks. I just turned 26, so I'll have to update that bio.

Speaker B [00:02:09]:

Oh, nice. Alright. Well, my first question for you is what would you say is the biggest thing that you did or are doing that has helped you to achieve the freedom to do what you enjoy?

Speaker A [00:02:22]:

Oh, I would say the number one thing that's that started it off was probably just just sharing my journey with other people. So it all kinda started with sharing what I was doing when I was buying my 1st rental property on on Instagram. And from there, I kind of gained an organic audience, and it's helped me in in every part of life with real estate investing, with being able to launch a community afterward, with being able to quit my day job. It it all kind of stemmed from that decision to share, and I didn't know that it would be such a big decision. But looking back in retrospect, like, what is what do they say? Like, vision is blindside is 2020 or whatever that quote is. Hindsight, that's what the word is. And I kind of identify that as, like, one of the things that really set me up for success in a lot of different ways.

Speaker B [00:03:15]:

Yeah. So so how, like, how did that happen? And then I'm I'm guessing you mean, like, through connections of other people because they they saw you were out there talking about things?

Speaker A [00:03:27]:

Yeah. So I just started sharing. Like, I I started in Instagram before I ever had a rental property, and I was just kind of sharing, like, hey. I'm submitting offers, and I really didn't know what I was doing. Real estate is such a it's such a it seems like such a complicated topic, and there's you don't learn about it in school. I was in just graduating from college, and even though I was a finance major, we never really learned how to purchase a house. And so every step of the way, I was kind of freaking out and trying to figure it out along the way. And I was just kinda sharing everything with my audience.

Speaker A [00:03:58]:

Like, oh, I learned about what a preapproval was today. Like, maybe you'll find that interesting. And through that process, I I made a lot of friends, and I think that was the kind of the first step is is the community around me. So, again, real estate investing is is such a a niche, realm, and it takes a lot of hard work, it takes a lot of sacrifice, and the reality is is people around you, my college friends, weren't interested in that type of thing. You know, they were just getting their 1st paychecks. And what do they wanna do? They wanna buy a Gucci belt. Well, for me, like, I wanna save every single penny because I wanna buy a rental property. And that type of the discipline, that type of, mindset is is just not something that you find in everyday person.

Speaker A [00:04:40]:

And so for me, first, it was that that clarity, that community, that accountability to to take action and to keep pursuing those goals that I found in social media. Later on, I found partners. I found private money lenders. I found future community members and customers. But I think in the very beginning, it was that that community that allowed me to kind of shift my circle and change my mindset, which was really very powerful.

Speaker B [00:05:07]:

Yeah. I think that's great advice because I feel like I've heard from a number of creators and entrepreneurs that they wish they started that sooner. Entrepreneurs that they wish they started that sooner because they maybe either felt like it they they weren't really into social media or they felt embarrassed that they were gonna share something, and and, actually, they don't know what they're talking about yet. But like you said, like, you can just share things about where you're at right now. And if you just learned that thing today, like, you can say that, and people will wanna follow that journey of your growth. And then when you need help, when you have a product to sell them, whatever it is, now you've got an audience instead of having to to really grind at that whole thing later on. Yeah. I I think that's great advice.

Speaker A [00:05:55]:

Yeah. People always, they think they have to be successful to share something, but the reality is it's much more interesting to watch someone be successful and grow into that success. Everybody who's 10 steps ahead of you is never gonna make fun of you. They're actually gonna wanna help you. And everyone who's one step behind you, you're very relatable to, because I'm not I don't own a 1,000 units. I don't make $1,000,000, but they wanna learn from someone who is just a little bit ahead of them, because I, at the time, was, like, very in touch with the feelings of freaking out, or, like, I was very in tune with the beginner mindset, and I understood where they were and where some of those struggles were, where someone who is 8 steps ahead just doesn't remember any

Speaker B [00:06:37]:

anymore. Yeah. Exactly. And that's something that I love to remind people specifically about, like, the online course business. If you wanna teach somebody something, you're actually in a better position when you just learn that thing than, like, the absolute expert teaching someone who's a beginner because the the expert has forgotten those experiences a a 1000 times, and they have to kinda, like, relearn. Oh, yeah. I remember when I went through that. But they when they're first kinda creating that content trying to teach it, they're almost too far ahead in some ways.

Speaker B [00:07:08]:

Mhmm.

Speaker A [00:07:09]:

Yep. Totally feel that.

Speaker B [00:07:12]:

So at only 26, you're a business owner and a real estate investor. Can you walk us through, like, were you always thinking that you wanted to get involved in real estate? And also, I think specifically what you did is is not, not only is it impressive at your age, but I think you had to learn a lot of things that seem kind of more hidden or secret in the real estate world of, like, how am I going to get all this money to invest into all these different properties when, you're first starting out like that?

Speaker A [00:07:48]:

Yeah. So I live in the Bay Area. Properties are very expensive. Where where are you based out of?

Speaker B [00:07:54]:

In, Austin, Texas.

Speaker A [00:07:56]:

Okay. So you're also in an expensive in the Bay Area, like, I always thought that home ownership was just like a distant dream, let alone owning a rental property. You know, buy a rental property for $1,000,000, you're probably gonna lose money on it. And so it wasn't until I heard some friends talking about it was in college and they were like, oh, I bought a property in Florida. Like, I bought a property in Ohio. And I'm like, what do you mean that you were in class with me yesterday? Like, you didn't go out to Florida, Ohio. And and that's kind of how I started to learn, just by talking to people, and I think you don't really know what's possible until you hear it's possible. And when you hear it's possible and you know the person who did it, you're, like, okay, well, it's actually possible, and now let me just figure out how to do it.

Speaker A [00:08:37]:

So it was first the awareness bit of it, of knowing that, like, it is possible to buy properties in other states without physically being there. And then the reality is you have to actually figure out how to do it. And so it's just like, there's a lot of sources of education out there. You know, BiggerPockets is a really big, real estate education platform. I started just, like, reading books about it, talking to people, going to local meetups, surrounding myself with other people who were doing it. And, honestly, the best learning experience is is just to do it, though. So I read couple books and said, you know, it's kinda like learning how to swim as you can someone could tell you to not breathe in through your nose while you're underwater, but until you're actually in the water, you're not gonna really know how to do it. And so I like, within very quickly after I started learning about real estate, I'm like, you know what? I have a little bit of savings.

Speaker A [00:09:29]:

I I have some friends who I can use as resources. I'm just gonna jump in the deep end and actually buy a rental property and try to take out all the risk as possible by, you know, finding mentors and and reading the books, but I'm gonna actually go and do it. So 3 months later, I had closed on my 1st rental property. I literally I can't tell you I knew what I was doing because I didn't know what I was doing, but, I mean, I had some good mentors to kinda guide me, and I had read some books. And that's that's honestly the way that a lot of people learn how to invest in real estate is just just by doing it.

Speaker B [00:10:01]:

Yeah. Yeah. And I like what you mentioned about something showing you that it's possible. And if anything, one of the things I hope to do with with this show and this podcast myself is to show that to other entrepreneurs out there from a variety of people like yourself that, like, whatever you wanna do, it is possible. And so you you specifically work a lot with this out of state investing, and you kinda hinted at it. Can you explain more for somebody who is not maybe familiar with real estate investing, like, even me. Like, I'm I'm in the software business. I don't know much about real estate.

Speaker B [00:10:37]:

So if I wanted to go and buy a property in another state, can I really just go and do that? Do I have to do I have to have a specific person there? Do I have to be there? What's actually involved in it?

Speaker A [00:10:49]:

Yeah. Well, this process, the first question is where do you wanna invest? And I think that's where a lot of people get stuck is while there's a 100 different states well, there's not. There's 50 different states, but there's a 100 different markets you can invest in. And and the reality is is not a lot of people know what goes into choosing a market. So there's a lot of different things that help you choose a market, what your goals are, what your price point is, where you have a competitive advantage. For me, how I chose my market was I knew another investor there, and I was also prioritizing cheaper markets because I didn't have very much money to invest. And so when I thought about where I potentially have a competitive advantage, I had gone to work in Cincinnati for for my day job, and I had met somebody, again, who was investing in real estate, and he had mentioned to me when I was there, like, hey, if you ever are interested in investing, just let me know. I'll introduce you to my agent and whatever.

Speaker A [00:11:43]:

And I remember thinking, like, oh, gosh. Like, I don't have money to invest in real estate. And then I looked at the Zillow prices, and it was, like, $90,000 for a beautiful house. And I was, like, wow. I did not even know that houses like that existed in the United States. I was just living in my little bubble. And so, you know, I said, okay. Well, this this fits my budget.

Speaker A [00:12:02]:

I know someone there. They can introduce me to their team. I trust him. He has 8 rental properties. He can walk through my property if worse comes to worse. And so that's kind of how I chose my market. The next thing you wanna do is make sure, like, you don't physically have to be there. It's helpful to kind of look at the market, get a sense of the market, but you do have to build your, like, boots on the ground team.

Speaker A [00:12:22]:

And so, like, the first person that you'll probably need is that that local investor. So that's kind of why I created a community actually is because everyone's like, well, where do I find local investors? I did it the hard way and, like, I built a community on Instagram, but it took a lot of work to do that. And so a lot of people are just wanting to, like, plug into a network where they're able to find those connections. Why is the local investors so important? It's because they're gonna introduce you to a realtor, a contractor, a lender, a property manager, who's going to be like that boots on the ground team to take care of your investment. So it's actually possible. I haven't seen my property in years, and the only reason I go back is because I love the food in Cincinnati, but I don't have any any trips planned in the near future. But I know that my properties are taken care of because I get pictures from my property managers, and they say your property is doing great. And so my assets are taking care of me.

Speaker A [00:13:12]:

My my realtors go walk properties for me. My lenders finance my deals. And so we're able to run this business very remotely if you have the right people in place.

Speaker B [00:13:22]:

Yeah. Yeah. That that's great. And, I think that's really it does sound like the key point that if you you you don't wanna go into it and say, oh, okay. I can do this. So I'm just gonna go buy something somewhere I've never seen before, and I have no idea about anybody there. You still wanna be able to have the the resources to have people there that can help you, that that do understand what's going on, and so you're in a position that you can do whatever it is you need to make the right decisions even if you're not physically there.

Speaker A [00:13:54]:

Mhmm. Exactly.

Speaker B [00:13:57]:

So I see here that you've acquired over 40 doors or or units, I guess, in just 3 years. Can you share a strategy that you feel helped accelerate the the growth in the early stages of your business?

Speaker A [00:14:13]:

Yeah. A lot of people the what what really stems them on on growth is access to money. So I'd like the first property I bought was, like, I had saved up 50 dollars,000, and I had worked for 3, 4 years for that money, and I had, like, penny pinched every cent and lived in a shoebox to save up that money, and then I bought 1 rental property, and that was everything. And I was like, that's it? One rental property? It was in, like, a really cheap market too in Cincinnati, and I was thinking to myself, like, I had done some calculations, and if I wanted to reach my Financial Freedom number, then I would need a lot more money, money. And at this rate, it would be, like, decades decades before I would have enough money to buy as many rental properties as I needed to reach my number. And so that's kind of when I was like, well, there has to be a better way because there's a lot of people who own a lot of rental properties, but are not kind of stuck by the amount of capital they have inside their own bank because my bank now had, like, $0 in it. And so I learned how to actually access other people's money, and this is, again, where like, my social media presence kinda came in handy, is I had been, you know, tracking the whole thing on Instagram. People had watched me.

Speaker A [00:15:23]:

I I didn't ask for a thing. Actually, well, the only thing I asked for was real estate advice. It was like, what do I do? I don't know what to do. But I didn't try to sell them anything. I wasn't trying to coach anybody, and they kinda watched me, you know, cut my teeth, buy that first rental, rent it out, make some money. Like, they were all celebrating with me, and then somebody actually reached out to me and said, like, hey. If you ever have another deal come up, I'd be interested in putting money into the deal. And I was like, what is that? Like, what do you mean? Like like, spill my partner, like, give me money, like, be the bank.

Speaker A [00:15:53]:

I don't even know what that means. And so I ended up going through, like, this long, journey of education of, like, what it means to have a private lender in a deal. And so there's different ways to to use other people's money. You can give them equity in the deals. They have half the deal or however you structure it, or they can literally be your bank. And so I started using people from social media to be by bank instead of using my own money, and so that's kind of what we call it private money in the real estate industry. I ended up funding pretty much all the deals until this day with with private money, and it's a way that, it's just a way to access other people's capital because everybody is is stuck by the money they have in their bank account, and it's it's a way to kind of scale without being stuck by that.

Speaker B [00:16:42]:

Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense. So for for those who really are are not involved in investing or real estate at all, but this sounds interesting to them, I'm guessing they would ask, well, why would somebody give you that money? Like, what what what's in it for them besides, like, okay. You're gonna give them some equity in the property, but but why don't they just do it themselves?

Speaker A [00:17:05]:

Yeah. I I forget, like, I'm usually on real estate podcast, and it's such a different experience to be on, like, a non real estate podcast. Then we're trying to break it down as, like, simply as possible, but there's actually so when you think about what currencies people have, you have you have time, you have money, and you have experience, and at any given point in your life, you're kinda balancing all three of these things. When you're a kid, you have all the time in the world, but you have no money, and you have no experience. Now you're 80 years old and you have money and you might have experience, but what are you lacking? Like, you're lacking time. You don't like, you're running out. That's all you care about, and so what we do is we trade the other 2 for the one that we are prioritizing at the moment. And so a lot of people who I work with as private lenders, they have money.

Speaker A [00:17:53]:

Some of them have experience, and some of them don't, but the thing that they are lacking the most is they don't have time, or they don't want to learn how to invest in real estate themselves. Money is the most abundant resource on on Earth. A lot of people have money stacked in cash underneath their bed. Like, I talked to somebody who had, like, $700,000 of money in cash stacked underneath their bed. Bed. What they don't wanna do is put in the time to learn how to do hard things, like invest in real estate. That's a skill, and they don't have the like, they don't have the time or they don't have the knowledge. And so, that's kind of what you are giving to these people.

Speaker A [00:18:28]:

A lot of people, you know, when they talk about investments, they talk about investing in the stock market. So, the stock market right now, like, I was just looking at a graph, and in 2022, it dropped 19%. Well, a lot of people don't like the fluctuations of the stock market, and they would much prefer a more stable return. And so, like, people who work with me, private lenders in general, you know, they're usually getting anywhere between 8 to 12%. It is a stable return. It doesn't matter if the property burns down. They're still getting that 8 to 12% return, and for a lot of people, for being completely hands off, off, like, that's the way that they want to invest in real estate. It's a it's a backed asset, and so a lot of times, again, investing in stocks, there's nothing physical behind that.

Speaker A [00:19:10]:

You can't call the CEO. You can't say, why is the stock cut in half? But when you're investing with a person like me, there is trust there. You can call me on my cell phone and ask me what's happening, and worst comes to worst is, like, a physical asset backing it.

Speaker B [00:19:26]:

Yeah. Yeah. Got it. That's a, I think, explanation of it. So now you've got this massive online community that you've built for these out of state real estate investors. And you got to it a little bit before, but what was, like, the the point that made you think, okay. Now I've got to grow this community and and help other people make these connections. And how were you able to grow it to the size that you did today?

Speaker A [00:19:57]:

Yes. The original point was that a lot of people were asking me how I did it. So, again, like, I did not I did never meant to become an influencer. I still don't consider myself an influencer. I like to say I'm an educator. But just by, by sharing your journey, everyone then wonders how you did it. If you lose £200 and you're just sharing your journey, minding your own self, everyone's gonna ask how to do it because everyone wants to do it. And so because of that, I ended up creating, like, a a bunch of courses and selling those courses, and then when I sold the courses, they were like, well, where's the community? Like, I wanna talk to people who are doing what I'm doing, and what happens if I want to ask you questions while I'm taking it, where's the support for that, and so I listened to them again and said okay, well let's take this course and roll it into a community that supports people who are looking to invest out of state.

Speaker A [00:20:50]:

And so, I have a marketing coach, and so again, this goes back to, like, you don't know what's possible until someone tells you it's possible. And so I remember, I remember talking to him, and and I was I was gonna shut down the whole personal brand side, and I was like, this is getting out of hand. I just wanna do my real estate, and, like, people keep asking me to teach them stuff. And I was like, just tell me how to automate it and and, like, do some evergreen sales, and if I make $50,000, like, I'll be happy with that. And he looked at me and he said, like, you're throwing away your biggest opportunity of your lifetime, like, your personal brand, and if you really tried hard at this, you could make a $1,000,000 in 2 years. And I was, like, what do you mean? Like and so I think that before that, like, I just didn't know what was possible until someone told me it was possible, and then I said, well, if that's possible, like, tell me how that's possible. And then he ended up kind of helping me make a road map to doing that. We're not quite at $1,000,000, but we're close, and it's not 2 years yet, and so I think his prediction will end up being true, but it was through the help of a mentor who kind of showed me what was possible and then helped me pretty much, like, leverage my already organic audience to to launch this community and and my past my past course students and really rolling everyone who had ever asked me a question before into this, lower cost community.

Speaker B [00:22:18]:

Yeah. I've heard from so many course creators where they don't have a community yet, but they have these courses. They've been teaching people, and they they can't believe that you can just start, like, turn on the community if, like, a platform like Heights platform, we have a community feature in there. You can turn it on and give that to your members, and it provides so much value. And Mhmm. I think a lot of people have the approach that's like, well, I have to spend all this time on the course. The community, like, if I just turn it on, it's that's not they're they're not seeing the connection of the value because they didn't have to directly put time into it, but it's so valuable to be able to bring all of those people together and give them a place to not only learn more from you, but learn from each other and connect with each other. Just as much

Speaker A [00:23:08]:

value as learning from your peers, and and I think that's Yeah. What is awesome about a community is I I kind of resisted at first because I was like, I don't want it to be about me. Again, I don't want to be the guru that everyone looks at and says, what's the answer? And oftentimes, I'm not. Like, there's other people who are just as experienced as me in that community, and now they are given the chance to actually give back to the audience, the community, and help them with their problems. And I think that's what was important to me is to get myself off of the pedestal and to give other people a chance to shine and give back, and it's been really cool to see how other people have been able to contribute as well.

Speaker B [00:23:45]:

Yeah. Yeah. That's great. And I think it it's also great that you did make this pivot from like, you were doing the courses, but then you realized, like, I'm not trying to to be up on a pedestal like this. And then you found what worked for you with the community. And, it's it's good that that you decided to keep going with that because I agree with your your marketing coach that, it's a it's a excellent opportunity and a a great amount of value that you can provide to everybody. But there are many creators who think that, oh, I'm I'm trying this thing. Like, this is it.

Speaker B [00:24:19]:

This is set forever. I have to have this business model, but you can always change it. So if you start a course and then you realize, oh, actually, I I don't really this is not really my thing. Maybe you wanna have a community. Maybe you wanna coach people, like, 1 on 1, and you're you're allowed to change that. It's your business. So I think, it it's great as an example that not only did you do this, but it sounds like you're more successful with it now and also happier with the way you have it set up.

Speaker A [00:24:50]:

Yes. I'm much happier, and it's also great to have recurring revenue because with courses, I always felt that I was on the treadmill of having to, like, sell, sell, sell, webinar, webinar, webinar, and with recurring revenue, there is some amount of churn, but the great thing is that every month, you do have a core amount of members who stay. And that means that you don't have to be on on the the hamster wheel every single month, and you're still generating consistent revenue. Kinda like a kinda like a rental property.

Speaker B [00:25:19]:

So for your community, I'm curious. I think pricing for communities is a little bit less understood in the general space than it is for, like, a a course or a coaching offer. So did you pick a price and you've just been with that the whole time, or was there any, like, experimentation with that? And if if you don't mind sharing or if it is public, can you share, like, what is the the price and and what people have to pay to join?

Speaker A [00:25:50]:

Yeah. We've, we've done some changing with it. So the course itself originally was, like, just by itself, just the course was, like, $500. Eventually, we raised the price to, like, $700, and then then when we rolled it into the community, we changed we launched at $99 per month. And so we actually had a kind of interesting launch strategy that was designed by my marketing coach, but he we did, like, a big virtual summit. There was, like, 10,000 people who registered, and we did a big production, it was honestly very expensive to run, but day 1 we got like 450 members inside our door, which was really huge, a lot of people come in at once. So, originally, we were, like, either it was $99 per month or $990 per year, and we had about, like it must have been, like, 15% of the people chose annual. The majority of people chose monthly.

Speaker A [00:26:49]:

We ended up changing the structure a couple months later into quarterly versus annually. You know, real estate investing is an interesting thing where it takes some time to ramp up, and you need to really do it for a while to see the results. And so if you're joining for a month, it's not much time to really give it a chance to see the results. And so we changed it to quarterly. Our quarterly pricing is 4.49 or our annual pricing was 14. Oh, there's a thumbs up that just popped up. Do you see that?

Speaker B [00:27:23]:

Yeah. I did.

Speaker A [00:27:24]:

On my screen. That's a weird thing. Anyways, it was, like, 1490 for the year. So, we end up giving, like, 2 months free either way. Right right now, we're, I mean, only, like, 20 20% annual subscriptions, and so now there's a balance between monthly and quarterly on the balance.

Speaker B [00:27:46]:

Yeah. That's that's great. I I agree with that. I think that there is certain types of programs and and courses and communities. It's a membership because it's a value over time thing. And it's not like, okay, here's this 30 day program. You're gonna get a result at the end of it. You have to keep doing it and keep learning it before you really start to see something.

Speaker B [00:28:10]:

And so I think that is a a great insight. I'm curious more about the Instagram because you said, like, how you started that early, but now you you kinda don't wanna be on the the pedestal as this for things. So if you were gonna give some tips to somebody who says, okay. Everything that I've heard today so far, this all sounds great. Maybe they wanna get involved in real estate investing too, but they say, okay. I wanna start building my audience, and then I wanna turn that into courses or communities. What would be, like, 3 quick tips or at least a couple of what should they do for their Instagram, and then what should they do when they start offering those products?

Speaker A [00:28:57]:

The first thing you should do is start an email list. And so, like, I know if you listen to Amy Porterfield at all, she talks about how your email list is gold. Why? Because you don't own anything on Instagram. They dictate how many posts are seen, what who sees your post, do they gonna kill your reach or not? Same with anything else, YouTube, Twitter x, whatever it is called, TikTok. And so you the only thing you really own is is your your email list, and that's kind of where majority of our revenue comes from. And so I I did a good thing early on is I started giving free freebies. I didn't, again, didn't really try to charge anybody. I just wanted to give away freebies.

Speaker A [00:29:37]:

I made guides. I made this. I made that, and I just offered it. I didn't ever think I would use it for anything. But when I was trying to start my email list, I was like, oh, I got, like, 3,000 people on here just because they've, like, downloaded something for me for free. And I again, like, I didn't mean to monetize it in the beginning, but it was very helpful later on, so start your email list early and figure out a way to nurture that email list, whether it's through like a even a monthly newsletter could be very helpful to keep in touch with people and stay in front of your audience. To make content on Instagram, I feel like the easiest thing and I I try to get good at this. It's always hard to remember, but just, like, document what you're doing.

Speaker A [00:30:19]:

Don't think about creating. When a lot of people have, trouble with reach and trouble with engagement, it's usually because they're they're trying to come off as too polished. And nowadays, the algorithm and people in general just wanna see authenticity. Like, you'll see videos that you're, like, how the heck does that have a 1,000,000 views? And it's just a person in front of their camera their phone camera in their car, like, saying some random stuff. And it's because people are pretty, you know, tired of, like, people looking all done up, and they just wanna know, like, you're a real person. And so I think don't, like, don't put so much weight on trying to look perfect as much as getting your message out consistently and trying to be the truest version, as cheesy as that sounds, is to yourself. And don't also be afraid to share things that you did wrong. Because I think that in terms of building trust with your audience, that's going to be the number one thing that builds trust.

Speaker A [00:31:15]:

It's great to see a win. It's great to say congratulations. But I remember the post that I've done the best, or, like, hey. I I lost a $100,000. Like, it hurt. Like, this is a lesson that I learned from that. I'm gonna tell you that so that you know I'm not perfect. And I think that's the type of message that people really resonate with because the reality is nobody is perfect, and nobody wants you to try to pretend to be perfect.

Speaker B [00:31:39]:

Yeah. And and people, they they wanna root for you, and they wanna root for your success. So even sharing something where it it didn't quite go the way that you want, it's it's not only resonating and connecting with them, but it it makes them want to see you succeed and and for them to support you even more.

Speaker A [00:32:00]:

Yeah. The the wins don't really feel like wins if there weren't losses. If there wasn't, you know, anything you had to overcome, they're just like, well, woo hoo. Like, your your life is rainbows and butterflies. Mine isn't. And so if you can share some of that vulnerability, I think it's it's the best thing you can do for your brand in general, and people will flock around you to actually help you overcome some of those things as long as they see that you're actually trying to take action, and trying to grow. So I would say that's kind of the key thing for Instagram in terms of of launching something, of monetizing. I've always been the the problem, I guess, for me is, like, I never meant to monetize anything.

Speaker A [00:32:41]:

I did it because I, like, truly loved it, and I think that was actually my biggest advantage. When a lot of people are looking at building an audience, it's like, well, how can I get to monetizing the fastest? And I think that's hard for me to speak to those people because it's like, well, you should probably provide value for a long time as much as you can until you can ask for something. And after you provide value for long enough, whatever it is, 6 months, 12 months, 18 months, then eventually people are gonna come asking for for you to sell them something because they want to learn. And that's a place of power that you want to be. And so I would, you know, think about are there ways that you can just provide value now for free in different ways? I used to host, like, free meetups for people. Doesn't take that much time. Just a Zoom call. Like, what can you do to provide value? And then don't sell anything.

Speaker A [00:33:41]:

Just, okay. Thanks. Nice to see you guys, and that helps, like, develop a good relationship with people, and eventually you can sell them something.

Speaker B [00:33:49]:

Yeah. That's excellent advice. So I've got one more question for you, and that is on the show, I like to have every guest ask a question to the audience. So it could be something that you're curious about, something you wanna kinda get people thinking about. So if you could ask, our audience anything, what would that be?

Speaker A [00:34:08]:

I would ask your audience to think about the best ways to provide value to their audience. What is, like, one thing that you can do that you think will create some goodwill? So I think the best person who does this is Alex Hormozi. He he gives away his books for free. He, like, gives away free everything. And the reason why, it's not just because he wants to give it away for free, it's because he knows that if people trust his systems in the beginning, that they're eventually gonna that thinking that thinking is, like, 10 year thinking, 20 year thinking. We don't have to have be that intense and think in 10 20 years unless you want to, but I think that's a really good it's a good exercise of, like, how can I provide value today for someone, and and what is that what is what's easy for me? What do I like doing? I'm always a fan of doing things that feel good and feel easy. It's if you don't like podcasting, then go podcast. But, like, if you do like hosting Zoom Zoom calls, then, like, host a Zoom call.

Speaker A [00:35:18]:

So I would just say, like, identify one thing that you can do to to really pour into your audience and pour into your audience enough, and and they will pour into you.

Speaker B [00:35:28]:

Yeah. Yeah. That's a excellent way to think of it, and I think that going through that exercise will not only be helpful in in what you can do and what you can offer in value, but I think it'll often give people other ideas of, like, if you look at your business and what you're doing from the standpoint of what if this was even better, but it was free. And, like, how would you do that? And then it's kind of like a game of figuring out, well, what are some of the things that I enjoy and I know I could do that I would be able to offer everybody for free? And then, as you said, and having this framing of looking at it over the long term, and I think everybody should do that. I think if you're if you're in a business and you you don't feel that you want to do that and maybe you're not involved in, like, the right thing that you're really passionate about because what what are you gonna do a couple years from now anyway? Right? So, ideally, you wanna find something that is not only going to be making you money, but it's something that you're just gonna keep doing every day and that you really enjoy.

Speaker A [00:36:29]:

That's why we're entrepreneurs. Right? For that reason, we do things that we enjoy. And so I think that yeah. I I agree with you. If if you can't find anything that you wanna do for free, then maybe you gotta think about, like, are you in the right niche or is there a place where you would where you would find passion even doing it for free every day?

Speaker B [00:36:49]:

Yeah. Exactly. Alright. Soli, well, thank you so much for coming on the show. Before we get going, where else can people find you online?

Speaker A [00:36:58]:

Me personally, like my personal brand is going to be Lattes and Lisa's on Instagram or lattesandlisa.com. If you're interested in investing out of state, we also have an Instagram called out of state investor academy or our website, out of state investor academy.com.

Speaker B [00:37:16]:

Alright. Awesome. Thank you.

Speaker A [00:37:18]:

Cool. Thanks so much.