Most experienced women real estate investors don’t need more information. They already know their next move. What they’re missing is a room that holds them to it. In this conversation, my Heart Rock Collective co-founder Julie Cooper and I get honest about why only about three in ten real estate investors are women, what it feels like to be an afterthought on a conference stage, and why so many women in the real estate industry earn well but aren’t building wealth through investing. We dig into the real power of accountability, the fine line between support and pressure, and how we use 90-day goals to keep long-term plans moving. I also share a quarterly goal I didn’t hit, and why where I landed turned out to be better than where I planned to be. If you’ve done a few deals and feel like you’re doing this alone, this one is for you.
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I’m Adrienne Green, and today we’re here with my friend Julie Cooper. Julie, thanks for joining me.
Thank you for having me. This is awesome.
Now, as listeners know, here we focus on how real estate entrepreneurs can break free of the grind and create the freedom they wanted at the start. Julie and I are going to be sharing about the Heart Rock Collective, which is an accountability mastermind for women real estate investors that we started this year to really help people do just that. Break free of the grind and create the freedom that investing can give you through the accountability and other resources we have. So Julie, I’m curious, as we got started here, we focused on women. When did you first notice that experienced women investors knew exactly what to do next, but they weren’t doing it? Was there a specific person or moment?
I’ve been to a ton of networking events here in Vegas and then also in Alabama, where we have some of our flips, and I realized, and I didn’t realize it immediately, but it took a few times where I was speaking to several different people. There were always fewer women in the room, but when I would speak to them, it was almost as if they deferred to their partner. They were there with their husband or they were there with their boyfriend, and they’re like, I just support him. But when I would start talking to them, they knew what they needed to do and how the process worked and what the good deals were, but they weren’t the ones taking the action. And it was almost like it was a lack of confidence because there were so few of them in the room.
Right. That makes sense. I’ve seen that as well.
So with seeing that with the investors, what was your take on why we needed to really focus on women?
It really came from this spring. I went to several real estate conferences and events, and there was one in particular where it was male speaker after male speaker after male speaker, and the first woman to come on the stage was when the organizer invited his wife on the stage to introduce her to the attendees, the audience. And so she’s the first woman on the stage. And the first thing that’s said about her is, isn’t she beautiful? And it was like, okay, so this is where women are in the mindset of the person hosting this event. And this is what we face in a lot of real estate masterminds, events, communities, things like that, is that women are a second thought and the first thing that’s said about them is, isn’t she beautiful? Sometimes we can get comfortable and we can forget that there are situations like that out there, and then there’s a rude awakening and we see that there are. And that really lit a fire in me to be like, hey, we need to change this and give women the rooms where they’re not an afterthought and the main comment is on their personal appearance.
Right. And I agree. So many conferences have the token woman that’s on stage or the token woman on the panel, and it is kind of like an oversight, or, well, let’s see what she has to say kind of thing. Like, let’s include her, instead of her being the expert and the authority. And in some ways I get it because of our history and how short of a time we’ve actually been able to be investors. But that doesn’t excuse the behavior, and it doesn’t excuse where we are today and how much progress should have been made by now.
I remember when I was in university, getting my business degree 20 years ago. One of the key principles in our curriculum was the power of having a diverse group and having people with different lived experiences, different backgrounds, so that you can bring more wisdom to the table versus, let’s say, a monoculture where everybody is coming with the same education, the same life experiences, and everything like that. And so for me, it’s been a founding thing that when I see a group that all looks the same with the same background and everything, I’m like, that’s not a good thing. But I think not everybody had that education that I did.
Right. Which is kind of funny because now we’ve created this mastermind of just women. But it’s really building that foundation. I know we’ve had this discussion, but share with the audience what you think is important with our mastermind and saying that we want women who have already completed at least three deals. Why is that important?
I love this question coming off the heels of the fact that I was just at BPCon last weekend. For those who haven’t been to BPCon, it skews a little bit more newbie, first-timer, hasn’t done a deal yet. And that conversation is just really different. Specifically, I went to a women’s networking event there and we were in small groups and having discussions, and half the women in that group had never done a deal. And yet that did not keep them from passing their opinion and telling other people what to do. And I was one of the more experienced people in the group, and yet I couldn’t get a word in edgewise because of all these people who’d never done a deal sharing their opinions. And so that’s why I think, with us setting the bar in our group, you want to have a few deals under your belt, whatever kind of deals you’re doing. Lending, flipping, buy and hold, BRRRR, whatever you’re doing. You want to have a few deals under your belt so that we’re all on a more even playing field, and so that you have some experience to give. Because I think the conversations that we’re having are not about how to get started. They’re about how do you grow, scale, and optimize, which is a very different conversation from getting your first deal done.
And it’s a very different conversation having somebody who has experience, whether or not it’s your exact field, but they have experience in negotiating and figuring and dealing with the spreadsheets and dealing with what’s a good deal and what isn’t, as opposed to somebody who has maybe read about it but they haven’t done it. And so that’s a completely different conversation. And a lot of people who are in real estate investing are not surrounded with real estate investors in their day-to-day lives. I’m coming from education. I love and respect my colleagues, but to have a conversation with them about the deal we’re doing now, that we’re doing a $900,000 loan, that would just be like, what on earth are you talking about? But I can come to our group and have that whole discussion and it’s like, did you structure it this way? Did you do it this way? Did you ask this question? And so it’s much more of a growth and movement mindset.
Right. That’s a really good point. And you hinted at something else that came up a lot at BPCon, and I think is pretty universal. People in general feel like in their local community, there’s not always a ton of people to have the conversations that they want to have with. And so that’s what I love about how we have a virtual community. We do have in-person events, where people can get together and have that face to face, but we have this virtual community, so no matter where you’re located in the world, I mean we have people from Germany to Guam, opposite sides of the globe, you can get in this room with like-minded people and geography is no longer a limiting factor.
Right. Which again, that’s a horrible but nice benefit that came out of COVID. The technology side of it and the fact that it is so easy to have those connections. It has been so valuable to be able to meet with these people on a week-to-week basis, face to face. Virtually, but face to face.
Right. And now I think there’s a statistic worth sharing as we have this discussion, especially if we have listeners who are like, I feel like I know a lot of women real estate investors. Only about three in ten real estate investors are women. So we’re looking at about thirty percent of the overall group. Now Julie, when you hear that number, does that match what you’ve seen at meetups and on deals?
A hundred percent. I’ve gotten to where now I count. I count how many women are in the group. And it really is about three out of ten, thirty percent in the room that are women. Now I have to say, I did go to a conference earlier in September, and it was more of a broader conference, Avance Global, with NAREIT. I could not believe how much women representation was at that conference. I was so excited. Almost every session, there was a woman on stage, there was a woman speaking. I met so many women in real estate, but that is the first one and the only one that I have ever gone to with those kinds of statistics. When I go to my weekly meetings here in Las Vegas, when I go to the monthly networking meetings that they have here, I am in the minority for sure.
Right.
So what’s weird, though, is when I go to these meetups and I meet them, and this happens a lot, I’ll think, my gosh, there are so many women in the room, and then realize as I’m talking to them that they’re realtors or real estate agents, that they’re not investors. And so why do you think that is? There’s a ton of women as real estate agents.
It’s a really big issue. When I was an active real estate agent on the residential side, and I’ve spoken to some of the few women real estate agents on the commercial side, it’s like you do these deals, and typically, if you’re doing well at it, you have a pretty high income, but you’re not necessarily creating that wealth building. The passive income that comes from investing. And I think it’s because often you don’t have these role models. You don’t see it as a path, something you could do. Even the women I know who have parents who were real estate investors, it’s ninety-nine percent of the time their dad, not their mother, who was doing that. And so we just don’t have, like we started off with at the beginning, Julie, women couldn’t be real estate investors. You couldn’t own property, you couldn’t do these things. And so we don’t have that generational legacy of, well, my mom did it, so I’m doing it as well. And so it’s more of the hustle, the earned income, which isn’t a path to freedom. And so you get these women who are trapped in trading hours for dollars as real estate agents or as lenders. We have a lot of women in the mortgage space. And they’re not creating true freedom through real estate investing. And that’s part of why I’m really passionate about what we’re doing with Heart Rock Collective as well, which is to help women who are working in the real estate industry become investors, do well in that, and use what they call insider knowledge. You know the real estate industry; use it for your investing.
For sure. Like we’re saying, we haven’t had that much time. I’m embarrassed to say, but it was 1974 that a woman was actually able to sign on a mortgage by herself without a male co-signer. That’s almost in my lifetime that that has happened. And so I feel like in the short amount of time that we’ve had, we’re kind of kicking butt. And so we need to continue doing that. So I’m glad what we’re doing is moving it forward.
Yes, and I love how you’re finding the positive spin on it. You’re so good at that, and that’s really important to me too. We don’t want to just be like, things suck. We want to be like, hey, here are the great things, here’s what we’re going to keep capitalizing on, here’s how we’re going to move the ball forward.
So I was reading, there’s a study from, I think it’s Dominican University, where people were sending weekly progress updates to their friends to help them hit a goal. So they were trying to accomplish this goal and they were sending these updates every week, and they accomplished their goals at a much higher rate than the control group that didn’t do that during that time. Why do you think that consistency of encouragement and reminders is so important in accomplishing our goals?
It really capitalizes on our human nature, that we will hold ourselves to a higher standard when we’ve made that obligation to someone else than to ourselves. It’s easier for us, even though we should treat ourselves like queens, to disregard or not do what’s best for us. But when we’ve told someone else that we’ll do it, well, now it’s not about us, it’s about our word, our commitment. Similarly, Julie, a similar study that I always think of is they did a study where people were supposed to take daily walks, and they either were doing it by themselves or they were signed up to be volunteers at the local animal shelter and they had to go take the dogs for walks. They could have done the walks by themselves at their house, but they had to go to the shelter, get the dog, and do the walk there. And even so, the people who had the commitment to the dog walked more. They had a higher rate of completion. And I always think of that, and just think, at the end of the day, we are not solo animals. We are meant to live in community and have these community bonds. And so that is a part of who we are. And I love how we can take advantage of that by setting up accountability partners, by having the accountability mastermind we have in Heart Rock Collective, and use that to help us reach our goals.
I know. The fact that, even on the smaller version, I’m accountable to you is the thing that actually gets my work done a lot of times. Because if it was just up to me, I would wait until the very last second and get it done and it would be done. But because we have each other as accountability partners, we’re much more likely to get it done in a timely way, and then it’s at a better quality also.
Right. Yes, it’s been hugely motivational. And what you’ve mentioned is, with Heart Rock Collective, you and I, as co-founders, are accountable to each other. But with real estate investing, women often are doing it on their own. They may have a business partner at the most, and so they don’t have the accountability that would be built into a traditional W-2 workplace or a volunteer organization or anything like that, because they’re solo. So you have to expressly seek out that community and that accountability.
Right, and you’re seeking it and sometimes it’s not there. Like we said, locally sometimes it’s not there. So we’re providing a place where it is, even though it’s virtual.
Right. And I know, Julie, you’ve coached investors on accountability and follow-through for years, including through the Better Life Tribe in the past. What’s the most common reason that a plan stalls for someone? Because the person’s capable, they’re motivated, but often they just don’t get across the finish line.
What I found was if they did not have a strong enough plan of action that went with what they really stood for. So if they were just looking at investing as another avenue, and they were juggling all their stuff in their life, and it was like, yeah, I need to do this, but it wasn’t their focus and it wasn’t an actionable plan that they took time on. So if they would actually show up to our coaching sessions, we were able to walk through: hey, this is where you want to be at the end. Let’s look backwards at what that is actually going to take. Those were the successful ones. They showed up every week and they were actually following and keeping up with the tasks that they had determined it took to get to their goal. The fact that it was written down and they could see it, and we were talking about it every week, those were the successful ones. The ones that fell off the wagon, so to speak, were the ones who were like, yeah, I’ve got my plan together, I’m going to be there, and, I’m so sorry, I’m going to miss the meeting again. I have to reschedule. And they just didn’t make it a priority in their life. And I get it, life gets crazy, but this is generational wealth that we’re talking about, so you have to keep that top of mind all the time.
Right. It’s when your reward isn’t instant. There’s no instant gratification. Like you’re saying, generational wealth. This is a long-term game. And so you’ve got to find other ways to stay motivated, to stay involved, because you’re not going to get that dopamine hit of having some reward, let’s say, every month or anything.
Right. And there’s a fine line, and I had to figure out where that line was as a coach, because there’s a fine line between accountability and pressure. Where they feel like they’re trapped. I’m going to hear from Julie again this week. You have to figure out where that line is, and I feel like we’ve done a pretty good job with that in our women’s mastermind, where it’s like, we’re here to support you. This is your goal. This is where you want to be. And just continuing to remind them that you made this promise to yourself, let’s get this done, instead of it being, you didn’t do that.
Right. You’re really good at that, Julie, and I appreciate that. Now, can you walk us through, because in Heart Rock Collective we do things by quarters. We set a quarterly goal and then actions we’re going to do every week to hit that quarterly goal. What does that 90-day goal, or that quarterly goal, actually look like inside Heart Rock Collective?
I think a lot of people struggle with this even though they live their lives in quarters, as far as finances. But I think the biggest thing is really getting clear on what you want the outcome to be. And Adrienne, you’ve done a great job creating the vision map and the plan and the compass tracking, all of that, the quarterly compass. But having that very clear outcome so that you can, as in education we call it, backward plan, so that you’re able to say, if I’m going to be here, for example, I’m in lending now, so I want to have 25 deals done by December 31st. Well, how does that happen? It’s not going to just magically appear. So what do I have to backward plan each month, and then each week, and then daily? What am I doing daily? And so we really walk everybody through each step of that so that they can see their outcome to completion.
I think that’s a great way to put it, and I always love the idea of reverse engineering, and that’s helpful because then you know this is what you’re working for, and you can make sure you’re doing the right actions to get where you want to go.
So, Adrienne, you are the master of accomplishing goals. You’re so much better at it than I am. You’re very specific. I’m more like, this is in general what I’m doing, and you’re so much better about being specific. But be honest with me. Has there been a goal that you have either not accomplished just because it didn’t get accomplished, or purposefully chose to let go?
It’s funny, because I was going to say, sometimes even with a quarterly goal, it’s only three months, but things do pivot or change or evolve, where what I said at the beginning of the quarter has changed throughout the quarter. And I always think that’s so funny when I compare it to New Year’s resolutions, where people set a goal that they really want to work on for an entire year. And I think of how unrealistic that really is. Because if we’re really working toward something, if we’re really putting ourselves out of our comfort zone and trying to accomplish something new, we are going to evolve and change and grow so much within that year that we can’t even imagine on day one what it’s really going to be like on day three hundred sixty-five, when we’re constantly pushing out of our comfort zone. So that is something where I have definitely evolved goals, even on this quarterly basis, both in terms of business and in terms of personal. So we just wrapped up quarter three, and for quarter three, with my investing, one thing I was focusing on was my short-term rentals. I really wanted them to be automated, run without me, and for us to have this revenue management plan in place. And I did work toward that. I had my virtual assistant property manager work toward that, and yet at the end of the quarter, we weren’t where I had said I wanted to be on day one of the quarter. But that wasn’t because we didn’t do a lot of work. It’s because we learned and evolved and progressed, and our plan changed. We determined that my VA trying to set up this revenue management wasn’t super successful. So now I’m speaking to revenue management companies to see if we want to bring one of them in, or if I want to set up the system, take a day or two to do that, and then have my VA be the one who runs it. And so last quarter, I wasn’t on day 90 where I thought I’d be on day one with my short-term rentals, and yet we made a ton of progress, a ton of great stuff happened, a ton of lessons learned, and from speaking to the other short-term rental people in Heart Rock…
Did you talk to our colleague in the mastermind who’s doing similar things?
Yes, part of the evolution came from being in the Heart Rock Collective community and speaking to other short-term rental investors there. That’s part of where the introductions to different revenue management companies came about, things like that. And in terms of dollars and cents, I expect that next year on my short-term rentals, at least on two of them, I will conservatively make fifty percent more gross revenue than I have been for the last several years with these properties, because of what I have learned and the changes that we are making through this exercise. So while on day 90 I am not 100% automated without me involved, and I am not set up with my VA doing revenue management, we didn’t end up at point A where we thought we’d be, but we’re at a pretty cool point B that has different things than I could have even expected on day one.
That’s awesome. And that aligns with the trajectory of how AI is developing so fast, that you may not have even had the capability of doing some of that in the first thirty days, but in sixty days they’ve already developed it so that you’re able to automate so much more. So that’s been an interesting growth as well. So could you say, and if not, that’s fine, but because of the conversations that you have had with the Heart Rock Collective members, did that directly influence what you were doing, or was that the start of your conversation?
I think it wasn’t the start of the conversation. It was what changed the conversation and added depth to the conversation. So at the start of the quarter, independent of Heart Rock Collective, I had been intrigued with this idea of revenue management and knowing there was potential there. And then part of my investigation, my learning, and my progression with that was the conversations, both within the community and also one-on-one with different members, to learn and grow and see what was possible.
Good. That’s awesome.
Now, Julie, that was one of my stories of value that I’ve had as an investor from Heart Rock Collective. I know you’ve been there and heard from so many members. Is there a member story that resonates for you? Maybe somebody who came in stuck on a decision or not sure where to go, and they got some value from the community that you think our listeners would like?
For sure. There’s one member in particular. Whenever I was talking with her at the beginning of this, she was looking at co-living, and really developing and buying houses so that she could rent the rooms out and do a co-living kind of situation. And she did that. She did a fabulous job. She set up the house, she did the co-living, and it was furnished. But in the midst of it, she was like, I don’t know if this is exactly how I want this to work, I’m learning, I’m doing this. Well, once she was in Heart Rock Collective, there was another member in Heart Rock Collective who is doing midterm rentals, similar to what she was doing with the furnished kind of idea. And so I know they have been having meetings and discussions and really helping each other. It’s a whole new field, they’re pioneers in this field, and they’re really able to support each other in that, so that neither one of them is getting completely stuck, because they’re able to bounce ideas off of someone else who’s in a similar situation.
Right. And something that reminds me of is, in these situations, I think it’s our culture as a whole. I don’t think it’s exclusive to real estate investing, but I feel like in our culture as a whole, everybody is now like, I’m a coach, I’m a guru, I’m a mentor, and it almost can feel very transactional when you want to interact with somebody and get some information or advice or brainstorm together. And that’s what I love about what we’ve created. In the situation that you’re speaking of, one member can speak to another member, interact, and it’s more like friends helping friends and less transactional.
Friends with experience. I love it too. It’s not just like if I’m talking to my buddy on the street, like, hey, what do you think we should do? They’re actually having conversations at this higher level, as friends, as colleagues, and with experience. So they’re pushing each other forward so much higher than they would have without it. Love it. So from that, have you experienced, or do you know of, a specific win from one of our calls that surprised you? Maybe it was just something small that ended up leading to a bigger result.
When we say the word surprise, one of the things that comes to mind first from our weekly meetings, for our listeners who don’t know, is that everybody sets up a business goal and a personal goal every quarter. We keep it simple. There’s just one big goal in the business area, one big goal in the personal area. And one thing that surprised me is how much support and help people have been getting on the personal goal too. It’s not all business. That’s something that surprised me, how open people have been to discussing and sharing their personal goals and really coming for wisdom and advice, and saying, y’all, I really have a hard time getting this done every week, and stuff like that. And I know that I can relate to that too, so maybe that’s part of why it resonates with me.
And kudos to us that we really have created that environment where it’s a safe space, a safe environment. And I kind of roll my eyes sometimes saying it’s a safe space, but it really is. People can come and express their feelings, and they’re not judged, and they are supported and encouraged, and they’re asked the hard questions. So it’s not just, it’ll be okay. It’s really, no, I get it that you’re feeling that way, but have you thought about this? You start asking questions of them. So it really is that iron-sharpening-iron kind of situation.
I love it. I think you’re right.
So, Adrienne, through all of this, we’ve been talking about Heart Rock Collective. If someone is listening and they’ve done a few deals, or maybe they don’t even know what we’re considering deals, and it feels like she’s doing this alone, because we’re looking at women in this situation, what would you want her to know?
That there is a better, more enjoyable, and more productive and effective way of doing this investing, and that’s in a community where you can share wins so that other people can benefit. You can share challenges and hear other people’s wisdom and advice, and you can have the accountability that’s going to help you perform your best. I would just say there’s this better way that you probably don’t even know about. You don’t know what you don’t know, and you don’t know that it exists. But it’s really going to be transformational for you as a person and for your investing business to get in this room.
And having the accountability makes all the difference in the world. If anybody has tried to eat right, they know that. And it’s the same thing with walking and exercising. It is the same thing in your business and your personal goals. If you’ve got somebody who’s going to ask you the hard questions every week and be there to encourage you, it’s going to make a difference.
For sure. And now, Julie, if there’s a woman investor who’s unsure whether she’s experienced enough to be in a room like this, what is one thing you’d want to tell her?
I think if she can talk the talk and understand the situations, and she really has done at least three deals, like you’ve said before, whether it’s, hey, I’ve set up the whole funding structure for all three of these deals, or I was on a team who did a whole flip, then that would be considered a deal. Or maybe it’s been stretched over time, and they feel like, I haven’t done three deals this year. No, it’s about your experience level and if you’re ready to actually move forward. So if you have three deals and maybe you’re like, I still feel like I’m lost and I don’t know for sure what I’m doing, that’s the perfect time. Come into this so that we can actually move forward. What do you think? What would you want to add to that?
I think you hit it right there at the end. This person doesn’t need to have all the answers. You don’t need to have all the answers. It’s okay to be lost, confused, feel like you screwed up. Honestly, we all are failing. We’re just failing forward, so that’s okay. The idea is just that you’re not asking, should I do real estate investing, or how do I buy my first property? Because that’s not the room where we’re going to help you best. We’re going to help you best when you’re looking to scale, optimize, and grow your investing business.
And honestly, if you’re struggling, that’s where you need to be. Come join us. Because then we’re able, like you said, to fail forward, to actually help you figure out within the struggle where the next strategic step is. And because we have such a group of experienced women, we’re able to bounce those ideas off of each other. And that’s why I really like our mastermind sessions, where we can actually dive into that. So if you’re struggling, come join us.
For sure. And for our listeners, Heart Rock Collective is primarily this weekly accountability mastermind where we meet once a week for one hour. And then as a bonus, we also have these in-person retreats. Members get first access, but you don’t have to be a member to come. And we have one coming up in Scottsdale, December 5th through 8th. Julie, do you want to share a little bit about it?
Yes, I’m so excited. First of all, Scottsdale’s beautiful. Second of all, I am so excited to meet our members in person. And I’m so excited to meet the people who are maybe just curious, like, I am struggling in real estate and I do want to meet other women in this space. And being able to have that camaraderie and being able to be face to face. We’re going to be doing some fun things. We have yoga sessions, we have some meditation sessions. And where is it that we’re going? You’ve told me and I can’t remember.
Yes, we are going to go to Frank Lloyd Wright’s house, Taliesin West. It’s a property that he built and oversaw there in the Phoenix area.
Awesome. Because I love that when you experience things together, you grow closer and you have a better understanding of how people think. I’ve always said that even with my kids. When we travel together, I see a different version of my kids than I do just every day at home. And it’s the same thing whenever you’re in this environment with people you don’t know very well. Face to face, being next to each other, you get to know each other so much more when you’re in that space and having these conversations of growth and enjoyment.
Perfect. I love it. And we will wrap it up there. So for our listeners, you can learn more about the meetings, and you can even join a meeting as a guest. Or you can also learn more about the retreat coming up in Scottsdale and even register at the website heartrockcollective.com. All of that is in the show notes underneath. So please check it out if you feel like this would help take you to the next level, and we’d love to see you there. Thank you, Julie.
Thank you. Thanks for having me.
All right. See you next week, guys.