WS535: Coupling Financial Services and Real Estate Investing with Bethany and Nate Smith

Leaving your W2 to launch into syndication full-time can be very frightening. Some people opt to make the transition slowly, while others choose, for better or for worse, to dive straight into syndication. Neither is right or wrong. You have to find what works for you. Bethany Smith did just that. She dove head-first into syndicating, and while she does not recommend this for everybody, it allowed her to break into the industry. Bethany, and her husband Nate, are our guests on the show today and in this episode, we learn more about the couple’s real estate journey and how they used house hacking and military crash pads to start cash flowing through their investments.

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Gene Trowbridge and Jillian Sidoti, founding partners of the top syndication law firm Trowbridge Sidoti, have a legal team with over 88 years of combined legal experience. That team, along with their amazing support staff, has helped clients raise over 3.7 billion dollars in offerings by being dedicated to empowering entrepreneurs to raise capital legally, while allowing them time for other important things in their life. To learn more, visit the Crowdfunding Lawyers YouTube channel or website

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We also find out how Bethany transitioned into the syndication space and how a business partnership was the catalyst to making this happen. Having an experienced cheerleader in your corner is very helpful when things don’t work out! The couple’s business model is unique because they pair their real estate investing with offering financial services. They shed light on how this works, some of the benefits, and how they’ve used it to increase their wealth. Bethany and Nate also talk about what it takes to be in have a strong marriage and a healthy working relationship, how they’ve improved their businesses, and why the coronavirus crisis is pushing them to reach out. Be sure to tune in today!

Key Points From This Episode:

  • Learn about Bethany’s diverse real estate background and how she started in syndication.
  • Why Bethany decided to quit her job and pursue full-time multifamily syndication.
  • Find out about military crash pads and how Nate and Bethany used it to generate income.
  • Some of the valuable lessons Bethany and Nate learned which got them to their bigger deal.
  • How Bethany met her current business partner and getting to her first large multifamily deal.
  • Insights into World Financial Services and how it relates to Bethany and Nate’s real estate business.
  • The typical WFS client, what you can use the money for, negatives, and how it pays out.
  • A recent business improvement and how Bethany and Nate are reaching out with the crisis.
  • How Bethany and Nate maintain a strong marriage while starting several businesses.

[bctt tweet=”Really try to niche down into groups of people that are doing what you want to do and see how you can offer value to them and get around them as much as possible. — Bethany Smith” username=”whitney_sewell”]

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

Bethany Smith on Instagram

Military Crashpad
World Financial Group

Ed Mylett on Instagram

The Better Money Method

What Would the Rockefellers Do?

The ONE Thing

Commemorative Air Force

Commemorative Air Force SoCal

About Nate & Bethany Smith

Nate and Bethany Smith have had a longtime interest in real estate investing, house hacking their first home 11 years ago with a VA loan. Nate has served 13 years in the USAF, and is currently a C-130J pilot in the California Air National Guard with a commercial aviation background. He and Bethany are currently building a World Financial Group financial services agency in Southern California and nationwide, helping their team and clients save, grow, and protect their wealth. 

Bethany has a background in residential real estate sales working as the Director of Operations for one of the top sales teams in Utah, where she developed a strong interest in and passion for multifamily real estate. She transitioned at the beginning of 2019 into multifamily Investing full time. She is acting asset manager on several communities in Western markets (NV and AZ), most recently closing on a 36 unit C-class property and actively pursuing the next investment. She is passionate about transforming troubled apartment complexes into safe, stable communities for tenants and their families. She also serves on the leadership team for Multifamily Masters, an international Meetup organization focused on multifamily real estate Investing. Nate and Bethany both volunteer at the Commemorative Air Force SoCal wing, a non-profit dedicated to preserving the history of WWII aircraft for generations to come, an association of which they are very proud. 

Full Transcript

[00:00:00] ANNOUNCER: Welcome to The Real Estate Syndication Show. Whether you are a seasoned investor or building a new real estate business, this is the show for you. Whitney Sewell talks to top experts in the business. Our goal is to help you master real estate syndication.

And now your host, Whitney Sewell.

[INTERVIEW]

[0:00:24.1] WS: This is your daily Real Estate Syndication show. I’m your host Whitney Sewell. Today, our guest is Nate and Bethany Smith. Thanks for being on the show, guys.

[0:00:33.6] BS: Thank you for having us.

[0:00:35.5] NS: Thank you for having us.

[0:00:35.2] BS: Excited.

[0:00:35.9] WS: Yeah, it’s neat to have you both on the show, I know we’ve met that in a mastermind like probably a year or so ago, something like that. Just exciting to have you, you all now own the podcast and learn a little more about behind the scenes, how you all made this happen, where you’re at now.

But a little about them: They house hacked their first home 11 years ago with a VA loan. Congratulations about that, I wish I had known about the VA loan when just buying our first property years ago, my wife and I. House hacking, yeah, that would have been a great route. But Nate has served 13 years, United States Air Force and is currently a C-130J pilot in in the California air national guard with a commercial aviation background. Thank you for your service, Nate.

Bethany has a background in residential real estate sales and transitioned into multifamily investing full-time in early 2019. She is also acting asset manager on several communities in Nevada and Arizona, most recently, closing on a 36-unit, C-class property. Congratulations.

Together, they’re building a World Financial Services agency in Southern California and Nationwide, helping their team and clients save, grow and protect their wealth.

I think it’s neat guys, just you know, how you all are working together and you got these, you all are experienced in real estate and growing a business. And then also, just your experience with this other business you’re putting together and helping people, being able to build wealth at the same time because it’s not something that just happens overnight.

Tell the listeners a little more about who you all are and your focus and let’s jump in.

[0:02:06.9] BS: Yeah, for sure. I’ll give a little bit of background on me. Grew up in Boise, Idaho. Nate and I got married about 11 years ago. And as Whitney mentioned earlier, we house hacked our first home. And saw a lot of value in – Well, basically, we had to PCS, which is permanent change of station military talk. We were forced to rent that home out basically and neither of us knew anything about real estate investing but it kind of got our toe in the water and interested in it. And we’re like. “Wow, we can cash flow.” Cash flowed about $150 a month so we thought we were big time. Found a decent property manager. We owned that home for about eight years.

And through career pursuits and whatnot, we put the investing on a back burner for several years. We did little bit of training and education here and there. We learned a lot from Rich Dad Poor Dad, Robert Kiyosaki’s program. But really, the interest in real estate investing didn’t pop up again for about six years later, I’d say.

I was really interested in getting into real estate investing. But I didn’t really know how to get in that space. I thought at first, maybe I’d want to be a realtor and just learn more about contracts and that sort of thing. So, I worked for a real estate residential sales team in Utah. We’re actually one of the top teams in Utah.

Awesome group of ladies, I was the director of operations and all female team. And about 25% of our investor clients were investors. They were buying duplexes, fourplexes, that sort of thing. And I really gravitated towards working with those clients. I loved just how they thought and everything was based on numbers. They were very non-emotional about their purchases and I could see, they’re making decent money. And so, wanted to get more into the commercial space really and that led us to trying to learn, educate ourselves.

At the time, we were moving around a lot. Nate was in military flight training but really wanted to kind of get into the apartment and multifamily industry a little bit more and so, about a year ago December. December 2018, I decided to completely cut ties or quit that job that I was in and jump both feet into multifamily apartment investing.

I don’t recommend that. I’m not saying you should do that. For me, it was the right thing to do at that time and so I kind of needed to make that clean break and just go full bore into those. What I knew I wanted to do and so I’m glad I did that. But spent really all of 2019 learning, educating myself, trying to get in those circles and networks of people that were doing investing.

So, it was a really fun year last year. Learned so much and then we found our first deal in August about eight months after really started getting into it full-time. And then we closed on it in December.

[0:04:57.0] WS: Nice. Jumped in 2018, you said you wouldn’t recommend just jumping in like that.  But tell me a couple of things. Did you do that just to burn the bridge and say, “Okay, we’re going to make this happen, I’m moving forward with this and then there’s no way I can go back?”

[0:05:11.8] BS: Yeah, for me, the line of work that I was doing, it was very stressful, very time consuming and it was hard for me to be able to balance it with something else. Because it was kind of invading all other parts of the day. And it was just hard to like, “Okay, I’m not going to focus on or I’m going to clock out from that job and focus on this stuff.” 

I essentially was on call for a lot of things.  Just little fires that pop up throughout the day for real estate. We’re closing about 120 deals a year and only a handful of agents, not one or two at a time. It was just busy. I needed to kind of make that clean break. I think that’s the biggest reason for it.

[0:05:46.9] WS: Yeah, I think that helps us sometimes to just be committed, right?  I had to do something very similar and make a big decision and say, “Okay, we’re just moving forward this way.” And I think that was helpful for me mentally, just to know, there’s no turning back.

[0:06:00.3] BS: Yeah, absolutely. I think it was very much, I was fortunate to do that because Nate was you know, working full-time and able to be the only bread winner. But yeah, it definitely helped me mentally to just burn the ships, “Okay, I’ve decided I’ve committed this, I’m going to do whatever it takes to get this first deal.”

[0:06:18.4] WS: I think that’s a nice dynamic too when somebody’s going to get into – please speak to this, a nice dynamic for a couple when one can be the bread winner, if you all are going to start a new venture. Like the other one can devote all their time to it because there’s no income from it, right? But you’re not just – you know, you’re not just jumping in with no income saying,” I’ve got a couple of thousand dollars in the bank, I’ll be okay,” you know?

[0:06:38.3] BS: Right, I can’t imagine how just incredibly stressful that would be and that would probably make you make more unwise decisions, you know? Perhaps offer on something you really shouldn’t because you’re just so eager to get that.

[0:06:52.3] NS: Another thing, too. I was working full-time at the time, I was still active duty in the military, just finishing up pilot training. One other thing that we had in that period of time while I was going through pilot training, we got introduced to another type of real estate called military crash pads which is basically like, lack of a better word, Airbnb type of style, you can rent out the house by the room.

[0:07:11.7] BS: We house hacked that one too.

[0:07:13.6] NS: Yeah, house hacked that one too because we used another VA loan. So, what happened was, we were living in one in San Antonio and we were familiar with the model and we saw what the income that thing was producing, we did the math real quick and it was pretty lucrative.

I talked to the owner of the company or who the guy who was facilitating the whole thing. I was like, “Hey, we’re going to the pilot training in Arkansas. Do you guys need a house there?” He’s like, “Yeah, we need a new one. We only have one there right now. We’re looking to add another one.”

So, we drove out there, we did two days of looking at houses. As an investor, you know care if you like the house. You just care, “Is it nice? Does it meet the parameters of what they’re looking for?” Went out there, found the property, bought it, used a VA loan again and just had to pay for the furnishing. It wasn’t too bad and then we had people that hit within a couple of weeks of us launching it.

[0:07:58.8] BS: Which it was kind of a funny yet stressful period to get the house set up because we thought we were going to have tenants in it. We close – Closed on a Friday and we went out Saturday and Sunday and spent 20 grand to buy furnishings and everything.

[0:08:15.6] NS: We were supposed to have our first guest if you will.

[0:08:18.3] BS: On Monday.

[0:08:19.8] WS: Wow.

[0:08:20.3] BS: There is the potential for that. We wanted to be ready.

[0:08:23.0] NS: End up working out in another week. But it was fun anyways. But it forced us to get it done. You know, it was done. It’s been a nice cash flowing asset for us and something that’s been very hands off because you know, the nice thing about being a military crash pad is the tenants are responsible. All guys went to pilot training, people I know and like that. worked really well.

That’s been a huge help. Didn’t quite replace her income – About 50% of what she was making before. And so, it was a huge help to have that aspect to it as well. She didn’t like it completely lose out. The income wasn’t like completely gone. But –

[0:09:01.1] WS: Wow, I would say that’s a pretty successful venture there if it replaced 50% of your income that quick.

[0:09:06.7] NS: It’s a very niche product. It’s only a handful of places in the country that will work because it has to be close to a military base and not just any military base but be close to military base that has a high level of temporary duty traffic called TDY traffic. People are just going there for a short period of time for some training. And then they’re moving on. Because otherwise, if they’re living for any much longer than six months to call the permanent change of station, so they’re permanent being there, they’re not going to go rent out by the room for a period of time.

[0:09:33.5] WS: Right. You all moved from those or Bethany, you wanted to move into multifamily or maybe both of you, into larger multifamily and give me a couple of things that you learned along the way to help you to get to the larger deal?

[0:09:47.0] BS: I would say, the power of relationship and the power of not only networking but really trying to niche down into groups of people that are doing what you want to do and see how you can offer value to them and get around them as much as possible. I mean, a couple of things I did last year to really learn is go on a mastermind to Los Cabos with a bunch of people that were active investors.

And, it was a little bit of money and travelling internationally. Nate was deployed at the time so – I’d only met a couple of this people in person before. But people are like, “You’re going to Mexico with a bunch of people that you met on Facebook? Your husband’s gone, is that safe?”

But it was so much fun, just spending time with them, hearing you know, hearing about all the process and the things they went through. So glad I did that. I made a trip out to Dallas to shadow a general contractor for a friend that has several thousand units just to see how their unit turns and it just helped so much to get your feet on the ground and see the work in action.

It’s one thing to read about it but to actually see it in action and be like, “Okay, that makes sense. You wouldn’t put stainless steel appliances in this type of unit, you know? You wouldn’t do that kind of upgrade.” So, it really helps to see it in person. Yeah, the power of the relationship.

For me, basically, back up a little bit. In December 2018 when I was considering quitting my job, Nate was a big instigator of that. He had been following a couple of people in the multifamily space and was encouraging me to read some books and learn more about it. Like, “Hey, you like commercial real estate, you like multifamily and apartments, you should read these books.”

And through those connections, he got on a Facebook group. And long story short, that’s how I met my business partner. It was his group. He was talking about how he buys apartments and now we’re working together. But it was very purposeful interaction and kind of strategic to get to know him and other people in the group and just showing my face, being someone that they can know, like and trust and seeing how I could offer value to them.

[0:11:47.0] WS: You mentioned niching down with other groups of people. I couldn’t agree more with just the relationships are so important. I mean, in any business. But I know in this business, it’s just crucial. You mentioned niching down in other groups, what does that mean?

[0:12:02.1] BS: Well, basically, finding those who are moving things and shaking things. Finding who is really doing the work and spending time with them. And not you know – Offering to take them out to lunch or offering to fly out to them. “Hey, if you’d be so good as to let me just follow you around and listen to you talk on the phone and walk your property, that would be amazing.” And so just trying.

[0:12:25.8] WS: That showed you’re pretty serious right there if you were willing to just fly out, right?

[0:12:29.0] BS: Yeah, for sure. For me and my business partner, how we basically started working together is got to know each other a little bit first on Facebook and then met in person and still liked each other pretty well and we’re looking in similar markets. And so, we’re like, “Hey, we’re looking in the same thing,” and he wanted to find additional assets but didn’t really have the time or the energy, you know, to really just fly out and look at something at the drop of the hat or go out to those markets once a month to check on this property.

So, he kind of needed someone to be boots on the ground. And I had a lot of time obviously, I wasn’t working and I had the time to find a deal. So, it was kind of a great match, you know?

[0:13:08.2] WS: Tell me about how that partnership got you to that deal, your first larger multi-family deal?

[0:13:13.8] BS: Yeah, the partnership was just crucial. You know, getting clear on the criteria. What we’re both looking for and making sure we’re in agreement about that. We’ve had other people to – that we attempt working with for a bit that they want to go after an A class product that really nice, you know, luxury type apartments. And what we have is C class, very workforce housing, a lot of subsidy tenants for a lack of a better term, it can be a little grubby, you know?And if you’re not looking for the same type of thing, it’s not going to work out.

So, we got really clear on the criteria, agreed on parts of town that we wanted to stay out of, you know, bad parts of town. Parts of the town that were really easily accessible. You know, high traffic areas, that sort of thing. And yeah, communicate about those clearly and communicate often.

We were often in contact and that helped me want to be able not really to have a report but just to have stuff going, you know? Stuff in the pipeline. And he was just really – it is crucial to have someone that is in your corner and kind of your cheerleader like, “Okay that one didn’t work out, run the numbers,” that is why we run the numbers so carefully and don’t work out and that’s good, you know?

“And okay that person said no or the seller said no, you know? Just keep going,” so it’s great to have that kind of supportive partnership as well.

[0:14:31.9] WS: So something you all have I think is very interesting is that your focused on the real estate business but then you also have this other arm that is World Financial Group, you know just financial services and tell me about that connection or the relationship or how that works?

[0:14:45.5] NS: Yes, so we got introduced to the business late last year. And got partnering up with the gentleman I have been following for a long time. Sort of mentor. His name is Ed Mylett. Really, I fell in love with the business aspect of it and how you really help families when it comes to all things to do with finances, full-service financial services company.

And I saw – My initial pull to it was I was working with investors and I know I see people who have maybe money tied up someone where like an old 401(k) or an old IRA and they are trying to figure out – Maybe they are just willing to figure out how to get a financial plan together to invest in real estate someday. Maybe they want to invest in our apartment deal and they don’t have the cash to do it yet but they are a W2 warrior and that’s where they are at. They love their job. They love their career but, “How can I start transitioning into some investing?” Maybe it’s just whatever their situation is they offered the solution to help people get that plan together.

And so, I was really excited about that, in addition to the partnership that we have with someone who I considered a mentor for a long time. And so, yeah, very excited about it. We are growing like crazy . It is expanding all over the county. It is very exciting.

[0:15:46.4] WS: What is your typical client? Who is your avatar for that side of your business?

[0:15:51.4] NS: Yes, so there is two avatars that I am really focusing in on. The first one is the person that has a little 401(k) or old IRA, they’re going to be close to retirement and they don’t like what is going on in the market and what could protect their money and they’re not losing it. I have multiple clients recently do that.

The other one is anybody who is looking for a vehicle that they can grow and protect their wealth and do it in a way that is tax advantaged.

So, I specialize in helping people get tax advantage options in their portfolio. Things that the wealthy get access to. Basically, it is cash value life insurance allows you to grow your money tax free access it anytime. Not anytime but after a period of time you get access to it at a 100% utilize it for other investments. You can grow money at two different places basic costs. Different terms.

Infinite baking is probably one of the most common that we use and how it’s leveraged and most people that I talk to are on the real estate space. So that is the angle that I am talking to them about. It gives out an asset protection, wealth protection. It gives you a good – you know if you are looking for how to pass on money to the next generation that is a great way to do it is to pass on your liquidity tax free as well.

So those are the two big clients. If anybody who is worried about how their money is doing in the market and they want to have a way to protect it with the zero floor and so it really gets them upside I can help them in both areas. So, it is the older folks looking to retire and the younger folks not wanted to repeat what their parents did.

[0:17:09.1] WS: So ultimately, I mean we could use that money for this infinite banking method like you are talking about but also use it for investing in real estate?

[0:17:16.8] NS: Absolutely that is the primary way we are using it as we are growing the money in the policy right now and then once we have it reach a certain amount, over 50, 100,000 I will be able to pull out – depending on how long between how long now until the time is but between 70 and a 100% of that accumulated value. I could pull out in a tax-free loan that can then deploy to another asset.

And I can grow money in two places because it is a loan against the policy. I am not actually pulling my cash out. So still earning whatever my interest rate is in that account. And I am also earning over in the real estate asset. People use it all kinds of things, anything that you can think of there is no restriction in how you can use that money when you pull it.

[0:17:52.1] WS: How does it pay us now or is it just life insurance?

[0:17:55.7] NS: There is basically two buckets on. You have one side your debt benefit, your cost of insurance that is that part. And then you have the cash value side and that is the tax advantage vehicle to allow you to – Tax free and that amount is determined based on the size of the policy.

So, this is a general example of million-dollar policy, around $30,000 is what you can grow tax free inside of that. So, you are going to beat the Roths and you are going to beat the 401(k)’s as far as contribution. But the big benefit is the ability to access it to use it for whatever you want in your living years and not have to pay taxes on it. Now if you pull it out and you use it on a real estate deal, you’ll pay taxes on your gains over there most maybe or something like that. But the growth inside of there is completely tax free.

So if you really use it as an infinite baking. I mean people use it to pay for college for their kids because if your kid want to go to college and you don’t have a 529 what are you going to do? You have to use that money for education here and they can go there. If they don’t use it for education you can use it for anything. They can use it for starting a business, some people use it to buy their vehicles, down payment on in a house. Some people use it for retirement. There is a lot of ways people can utilize it. Really the only negative to it is you have to be able to qualify for it medically because it is life insurance.

So, there is something that inhibits you for getting qualified or cost prohibitive, then I guess if there’s a negative, that is the biggest negative to this.

[0:19:10.4] WS: Just having to qualify medically even though it is our money that we are putting in, I still have to qualify medically?

[0:19:15.6] NS: Yeah because you only get that vehicle through the life insurance contract. So, you don’t get that cash value side without the life insurance. So, you have to qualify for the life insurance to be able to utilize the policy.

[0:19:25.9] WS: Okay. Ultimately, we can put it in there. We can gain interest over there but then we can take a loan out and go invest in real estate and gain our return over there hopefully.

[0:19:34.6] NS: Exactly. It is called arbitrage. Banks do it all the time with your money. Why not do it for yourself?

[0:19:39.1] BS: There is a couple of resources to learn more about that. One is a book called The Better Money Method and then the other one is What Would the Rockefellers Do? The author is Gunderson. I think Laxton is the Better Money Method.

[0:19:54.7] NS: Yeah, those are really good books just kind of start exploring those realms. You know the Rockefeller method is all about how the Rockefellers were able to – They look at two different families. They look the Rockefellers and the Vanderbilt’s. Vanderbilt’s, while they were very wealthy Americans, they weren’t able to keep that generational wealth going but the Rockefellers were. A big part of their strategy to keep it, they are still one of the wealthiest families in America if not the world it become of their primary strategies was using cash flow cash value life insurance to accomplish that so –

[0:20:22.7] WS: Interesting. We should be all be thinking more long term like that right? Our children and their children and generational wealth. So, you know just a few – we are about out of time. So, a few final questions before we have to go but tell me a way you have all improved your business that we could apply to ours as well?

[0:20:38.4] NS: I would say the number one thing right now with everything that is going on with coronavirus is forcing us all to go virtual. We were just ahead on the game on financial services side of the business as far as transitioning to more virtual. But I’m doing all of my appointments are virtual now. All of my business growth is happening virtual. The team is groqing across the country, it is all virtual. And then as far as the multifamily stuff, she can talk a little bit about that with some of the Meetup stuff that we have been doing.

[0:21:01.1] BS: Yeah, well the biggest thing this last year that helped me be most efficient is to really focus. To focus on the one thing. There is a book I read by Gary Keller I believe that is called The ONE Thing, and it is all about pinpointing those activities that are going to move your needle forward and give you the most momentum and are the most highly productive activities that you can do and make sure those are prioritized in your day that you do them when you are at your best working ability, which for me is between the hours of eight and 11 in the morning.

So, I want my most highest attention detail, my highest priority task to be done during that time where I am most focused and energetic and everything. So that book really helped me a lot because it was like, ”All right, you know you just need to prioritize and hunker down and focus on that one thing,” and make sure it is done every day if it is a daily task.

[0:21:52.2] WS: That is part of my best time but I am not so sure it’s not just because I am drinking a big thing of coffee.

[0:21:57.2] BS: Whatever yeah.

[0:21:58.8] NS: Whatever it takes to get that one thing.

[0:22:00.8] WS: So, tell me what those changes like that, what does it look like connecting with investors and really marketing your own businesses to investors as well in real estate or financial services? Now that you can’t be out and about and having those in person meetings, which I love to have or offer to investors but we can’t do that at the moment, what does that look like for you all?

[0:22:20.4] NS: It is definitely forcing us to get more social in social media. I mean everybody is on social. If they weren’t on social media before, they are all on social media now. That is something that I am definitely working on getting better at. Like just letting people know, just talk about what you are doing. Go do more Facebook lives, post more on your feed and talk and market yourself. Talk about what you are doing it is something that I am starting to do more of.

Because we are all sitting at home. We’re all on our phones. They are on Instagram way more. I am sure – Some posted something on Facebook the other day. She goes, “Who is getting alerts on their phone that they significantly increased their screen time?” Apple phones, they will do that. So just get on social media that is the biggest one. Market. Let people know what you are doing, reach out to people.

You know I have seen a lot of people doing these virtual happy hours. Everybody will get in on a Zoom call and do a little happy hour thing just to keep everything social. But those things are important too. I think the most important thing I have learned in the businesses that I have done, I had a marketing business before. then we did real estate stuff, and now financial services is everywhere we’ve gone we have always tried to make an effort to develop that know, like and trust factor.

So, she mentioned earlier with the Facebook group is we would go live in that group a lot. And so, when we show up to events and things like that people knew who we were and it helps develop that know, like and trust. So, the same thing with social media, people see you, they hear you, they get to know you better and the more likely they will interact with you.

[0:23:37.9] BS: Hopefully they’ll like you.

[0:23:39.0] NS: Hopefully they will like you.

[0:23:40.1] WS: That’s right. So, I ask a lot of people the one thing that’s contributed to their success? But I think for you all I’d like to know as a couple in pursuing businesses like this especially while being deployed at times too, I mean it doesn’t just happen overnight that a marriage is a success and that you all have made it work in creating these businesses, successful businesses at the same time and so what is the one thing that’s contributed to your success together while pursuing successful businesses at the same time?

[0:24:08.8] NS: I think for me the biggest thing is we both have been pretty good about having open communication. Like always realizing the other person doesn’t know, give him the benefit of the doubt. Understand that we are not at war with each other. We may have disagreements you know and we worked through a lot of that in the early years it is just trusting that we still love each other. At the end of the day we still love each other, we still like each other. We are just working through how do we work these things out together?

And so that is probably the biggest one and then as far as working together, I had a certain vision for how I want it and she had a different vision. And then figuring out – Getting clear on what we wanted out of life. But then to figure out what depends on getting aligned on the same path to get there because.

For a long time, I’ve always had these big ambitions. I’ve always had a side hustle. I have always said something where I was doing on the side and the ultimate goal is to getting the business. The big reason I went to international guard when staying in active duty, is I wanted to have a business that I can do full-time and then for just doing that and figuring out how to work together and communicate. Open communication and trust and give each other the benefit of the doubt.

[0:25:09.9] BS: Yeah, I would say for sure the same like gracious honestly is the best way I could say to put it. We have always had quite a bit of stuff going. I would say we always had our main jobs and then at least one or two side hustles too. And so, we have worked together a lot and we have a lot of things going. Just being very honest and get to the point and bring up an issue sooner than later so it doesn’t sit there and fester and be all passive-aggressive and everything.

Just have it out. But do it graciously and always expecting that they acted with their best intentions. Like assume that they did that and don’t assume the worst.

[0:25:45.7] WS: That’s not always easy is it?

[0:25:47.8] BS: No. It’s simple, not easy.

[0:25:50.9] WS: Yeah, you got to teach him that you are always right, right Bethany?

[0:25:54.7] BS: No, actually not always. Come to find out.

[0:25:59.4] WS: Now this has been fun guys. I’ve been grateful for your time and just sharing on the show. Tell the listeners how you like to give back?

[0:26:04.8] BS: So. one non-profit that we’re heavily involved in is called the Commemorative Air Force. It is a non-profit that is nationwide, we have a wing down here in Southern California. They find and restore World War two aircraft and fly them in airshows and do rides. You can check that out at cafsocal.com, awesome organization and we do that together. Not quite so much now because our time is more limited. But I am the gift shop manager there and Nate has done a lot of marketing help for them. That is one.

[0:26:35.1] WS: Nice, well thank you all for giving back in that way. Thank you again for your service to our country both of you, just as a spouse as well. I know that is not easy especially when the other is deployed so hard stuff. I have done it myself, so thank you all again for that. And tell the listeners how they can get in touch with you and learn more about you?

[0:26:51.9] NS: If you want to get in touch with me the best way is going to be on Instagram @therealnatesmith. You can look me up on Facebook as well.

[0:26:58.3] BS: Yep. Same Instagram M-F as in @mfbosslady on Instagram and also on Facebook.

[0:27:05.1] WS: Awesome, guys that’s a wrap.

[0:27:07.0] BS: Thanks, Whitney.

[END OF INTERVIEW]

[0:27:08.2] WS: Don’t go yet, thank you for listening to today’s episode. I would love it if you would go to iTunes right now and leave a rating and written review. I want to hear your feedback. It makes a big difference in getting the podcast out there. You can also go to the Real Estate Syndication Show on Facebook so you can connect with me and we can also receive feedback and your questions there that you want me to answer on the show.

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[OUTRO]

[0:27:48.9] ANNOUNCER: Thank you for listening to the Real Estate Syndication Show, brought to you by Life Bridge Capital. Life Bridge Capital works with investors nationwide to invest in real estate while also donating 50% of its profits to assist parents who are committing to adoption. Life Bridge Capital, making a difference one investor and one child at a time. Connect online at www.LifeBridgeCapital.com for free material and videos to further your success.

[END]

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